So I know the resort lamp is large, but the Voss lanterns have NEVER been this big... Seems the scale on the ceiling tiles may be a bit off?

Probably an implausible suggestion, but I'm gonna throw it out there, anyway. I've recently been playing through Dragon Age: Origins again, and there, the non-voiced player character works... mainly because it was never voiced to begin with. That is not the case with SWTOR, where we started with distinct voices -- and characterization -- for our player characters. The highly vaunted "return to BioWare storytelling" has meant dropping the fully voiced dialogue for player characters, and a return to the silent menu options in games like DAO. Yeah, I know it was a cost cutting measure, and that the COVID era hasn't helped. But, after starting the game with all those options -- and the dreaded dialogue wheel -- it just feels cheap, and really pulls me out of the story after all these years. I can even forgive the merging into one storyline for all classes, if we could get a dose of the smuggler snark or bounty hunter disdain when it comes to Forcie moments. Just my $.002... adjusted for inflation. ;)

Those of us closest to the lifts, standing at the cantina bar, had VIP bands... but thank you for the suggestion. I'm certain you were just attempting to be ever so helpful. The spam was hitting everyone in the instance who happened to be anywhere in the cantina or even at the cargo holds, and didn't stop until one went to the outer ring. This is a known issue that is sometimes exploited to be a pain. If there were a simple fix or work around, we would have used it. We couldn't even swap instances because the other instance was depopulating. So yes, it would be nice if this was addressed.

Settling in at the Carrick cantina to have a conversation with friends, and my screen is suddenly scrolling with... You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter. You must purchase a VIP Wristband to enter.... It would be greatly appreciated if something could be done to alleviate this issue. The usual tactic of ignoring legacies doesn't work, as ignoring system messages isn't usually a good thing -- and really shouldn't be necessary.

We just don't see as many over on Star Forge these days.... Of course, I say that, and will probably jinx it.

Here, a bit of a history lesson: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/768204-the-end-of-heroengine/ A quote from the post (emphasis mine): I had a similar conversation with a few of the BWA staffers at the last Cantina event I attended in 2019. Not much had changed -- Simutronics was purchased by IdeaFabrik, and IdeaFabrik is still around, thus so is HeroEngine. But, during the financial issues, there were issues getting support; it was also noted that the engine couldn't always do what they had expected it to. Thus, the EA/BWA team license used for SWTOR has been heavily modified, probably bordering on a new beast. It's also why, sometimes, they get odd bugs popping up, as the code interacts in ways they don't expect (as if programming doesn't do that enough on its own at times). That said, it still doesn't change the fact that something needs to be done about all the BS spammers.

I agree that there might be coding limitations to what they can do. On one hand, they have shown themselves to be very creative in dealing with the engine when need be, practically having rewritten the thing since the original developers went under shortly after purchase. On the other hand, I realize that they will eventually hit a few walls with what they can do, and this might be one of them. Perhaps the move to 64-bit will help. Perhaps it will not. I have never written or modified code at this level or complexity, so I can't say. I will counter one thing: While it was never perfect, it was slightly better with launch, in the 2011 - 2012 era, because the game/support was more fully staffed. I can remember gold spammers being silenced and kicked much quicker. As time and budgets have been cut, this seems to have suffered; the time gold spammers stood on fleet, hawking their services, grew more and more extended. They have, however, made a concerted effort to discourage gold farming, and the flood timers seem to work decently most of the time. That the game isn't quite as popular as it once was also factors into this, of course, creating less demand for their product. Thus, if the solution cannot be implemented through encoding, then customer support has to fill the gap. And that, unfortunately, has been lacking for many years. Tickets submitted only take snapshots of text; any further investigation requires going into server logs and determining if other actions, such as toy/mount spam, took place. This takes time and manpower -- an investment that needs to be made, to maintain the full playability of this MMO for everyone -- RP, PvP, and PvE players alike... especially since there are always going to be jerks who get their jollies from bullying or harassing other players. That said, I have played this game -- with a brief gap -- since launch. I have enjoyed the hard work of the art department, the writers, the coders, and the devs; I have also appreciated the work done on these forums, especially with a bit more effort to herd the cats and open communications these days. Have there been mistakes and mis-steps along the way? Undoubtedly. But nowhere else can I immerse myself quite so fully into the galaxy far, far away with the many friends I've made over the years. In short, I just want to enjoy the damned game, but the failure of EA/BWA to find a good solution here ultimately affects that. TL;DR: If they're going to keep on a "quality of life" kick, then this needs to be addressed, too.

There are individuals in this game who show up every night, harassing the Nine Corellian Hells out of others. While I have to admire their dedication to bullying fellow players, it gets old, and legacy ignore doesn't do even half the job it needs to. No, we don't have to group with them in content -- fantastic -- or see their conversation in /gen or /say chat -- also great, but they are still able to continue their harassment by other means: Spamming emotes to feed the scroll; spamming mounts; and spamming other non-targeting abilities. And yes, this is more than a nuisance. This is repeated, targeted behavior that has not been addressed by the numerous support tickets already submitted. So if customer service is not going to be responsive enough to address it, then the technology in-game should.

... when you're hanging out in the cantina, having a nice, pixellated cuppa, and then... the spam begins. And this @#$% isn't your typical Gold Farmer -- oh no. This one was spamming the chatbox FULL of emotes while stealthed, so that we couldn't report their sorry shebs. Then they began targeting individual players, a different one each time their spam timeout expired. They were eventually found -- and ONLY because someone with detection skills was kind enough to hunt the osik down. Multiple reports were filed, just as they are for every other time this happens -- usually when we can actually SEE the @#$%. But even reporting these clowns doesn't seem to DO anything: It seems only a snapshot of the chat is appended to the ticket, which doesn't even BEGIN to cover the emote spam. I know there are a lot of things to tweak and new content to write, but y'all, seriously... this is an issue. Worse, it's often the same people, over and over again. And hey, if anyone at EA/BWA wants to actually do something about it, I have name and screenshots.

The emote spam is real -- the fact that we can ignore legacies is great, but after recent events, I'd pay actual money to block the emotes as well, especially when dealing with @#$% trolls.

Thank you. I did wonder. I don't PvP and haven't run Ops on a regular basis in a long while, so this is not a benefit I would know. ... which also makes the point for me that choice should be a thing. If I ever do choose to do PvP or again have the opportunity to run Ops, then it'd be a thing. When not partaking of this content, then, it makes sense that maybe another choice/config would be more beneficial.

I've been playing a Combat Sent since launch. I remember tanking with my sentinel; being able to choose my combat style; and I still miss choosing advanced classes at level 10. In short, I'm the cranky old gal yelling at the young whippersnappers to get off her lawn. The proposed changes are distinct and I am more than a bit wary. That I am also a Galaxies refugee doesn't help alleviate that. Loadout choice at the mo is "A." I generally play an alac/crit build, so play hasn't felt all that different from my normal build...BUT. I definitely felt the absence of Awe, Force Camo, and Transcendence. Honestly, one of my biggest pet peeves is when a class gets revamped, and I lose abilities I once had at the same level. So the prospect of having a level 75 toon that had Awe, Force Cloak, and Transcendence, but now doesn't kinda hacks me off. As with so many others here, I prefer the flexibility that I currently have; pigeon-holing abilities too much limits our utility, especially when playing in smaller groups or solo. And there were times on Onderon where I would have dearly loved to have a bit more crowd control. (I'm also still bitter about the loss of "Slice Droid" in other instances.) Since the change on Precision from timing to stacks, Centering build has felt slightly off to me. Probably perception, but in this instance, I had a few longer fights where Zen never proc'd. Some of this may have just been a result of changes to my usual style because of the slightly differing passives (and gear), but it definitely did not feel right. I understand the drive to make the builds more accessible or more newbie friendly, but the play still has to be engaging. When they revamped builds back in the day, ostensibly to make them more "friendly," Blizzard dumbed the Affliction spec Warlock down so much that it went from a challenging and fun spec that required focus on ability and timing, to a 4-button smash that got boring in a hurry. My Combat Sent, as it stands, is a happy medium -- not overly complicated, but challenging enough, with enough utility to handle both single target and AoE acceptably, adapting on the fly. The changes, as presented, would be incredibly disappointing and would probably stifle that. Also: I do not understand the fascination with Blade Blitz. For me, it's a flashy animation and an ability that I don't use often. If I'm jumping into the fray, I prefer my two stacks of Force Leap, and for AoE, I prefer Force Sweep, Rebuke, and Cyclone Slash. Will give loadout "B" a shot this weekend.

Current game status: Red "X" with server lag over 600,000 ms. Did some network tracing, and it *looks* like it's an AT&T and/or AWS issue. Pinged and traced the two connections to SWTOR at 159.153.65.224 (EA in Ashburn) and 52.10.115.210 (AWS -- authentication server?). Pathping to the EA server in Ashburn is only showing three hops, and doing calcs for 50 seconds. No packet loss. Tracert, hops time out on hop 3 and hop 7, both within the AT&T network, and just before the hop to Level3. Those servers, however, may simply be not advertising their information. Times are decent, capping out at around 60 - 70 ms. Pathping to AWS is a bit more interesting. Pathping is again stopping at three hops and 50 seconds. No packet loss. Tracert times out on hops 3, picks back up on hop 4 still in Texas on AT&T (12.122.X.X). Last valid hop is hop 9, visible at 12.91.154.234, still in the AT&T network. Hops 10 - 30 time out. Again, could be possible that the AWS servers are simply not sharing the info on tracert requests, BUT I waited a really long time for the task to complete. I really wish my network skills weren't quite so rusty.

Same. Had hoped that, after stepping away for a while, it would resolve itself. Not so much. High ping was 240,000 ms; current low end is running 422, but it's bouncing between that and 1400 ms. Usually in double digits. Any of you with AT&T? Or is it across providers?

Count me in as someone on SF who still cannot log in on characters in SHs -- Yavin, Coruscant, or NS. Characters on personal ships are accessible. Thanks and good luck!