1000 points =/= $65. That's WAY too over priced. The reason the CE is so expensive was because of the statue. You're better off looking at the price of the Digital Deluxe which was like $80. That makes the statue, CE store, art book, soundtrack, and authenticator a $70 value since those weren't included with the Digital Deluxe. The game itself used to cost $50. So you'd have to put the 1000 points into that remaining $30 (digital deluxe's $80 - base game's $50). But that remaining value also has to include the price of the STAP, mouse droid, VIP wristband, etc. So 1000 points will either equal $10 or $20. Chances are, it'll be 1000 for $10. I'm certainly waiting to see a price point for the store before I go pouncing on anything. I'm also waiting to see what the store will actually offer ultimately. I've been a long time Sims player going back to the Sims 1 days and I've grown weary of the Sims 3 Store. They charge $35 for 50 items which is roughly the cost of an expansion for the Sims 3 and doesn't have the same game play as a full expansion. I am liking the idea of buying what I want in SWTOR, though. I never PvP. I hate it with a passion. So now I don't have to pay for it to enjoy the parts of the game I do enjoy. Truthfully, I'd be happier if SWTOR used Bioware Points so I could choose if I wanted to buy something in SWTOR or if I wanted to buy some DLC for ME3. Surprised they aren't going to use the same currency. I know one's a subscription based game and the other isn't, but it'd certainly make me feel better about keeping up a subscription to SWTOR if I could use the points I got toward something else from the same company. The items I've seen from the store haven't wowed me so far and makes me worry my points will just collect dust. I'd rather put them to use buying stuff for another game if I could.

Bioware already said we were getting more character slots in the future. Personally, I wish they'd make legacy account wide which would at least temporarily alleviate the need for more character slots. We can't mail stuff cross server, but not really such a big deal. Granted, account wide legacy and account wide cargo holds or mailing would be a nice treat. Chances are more character slots will have to be paid for whether they be a cash shop option or an expansion. It costs money to hold the data for each character and each character has a LOT of data connected to it. Name Legacy name Class Advanced class Race Body type Facial features Hair style Hair color Eye color Skin color Sex Level What planet quests you've completed What class quests you've completed How you completed the quests (if the data needs to be held for future reference) What quests you have in your quest log What quests you have yet to complete and haven't picked up Companions Companion affection Companion quests completed Companion quests not yet obtained/completed Your responses to the companion quests Light/dark side points Credits Gear Companion's gear Helm on/off Darkside corruption on/off Color matching Valor points/level Social points/level Commendations Cargo hold inventory Number of cargo hold tabs Your bags/inventory Mail GTN Legacy character perk unlocks Friends list Ignore list Guild Crew skills Crew skill level Crew skill schematics Vehicles learned Pets learned Abilities Talents Number of times you reset your talents recently Current cost to reset talents I'm sure there's even more than that. At any rate, it's a LOT of data. This can't be taken lightly. If there still is over a million players playing and every one of us made a 9th character, that's a LOT of data Bioware has to figure out how to store. That data also has to be regularly backed up in case of hardware failure. The hardware also has to be stored somewhere as well as maintained by someone. Bioware has to get the money somewhere to add additional character slots, and quite often those costs are put on the player. For those of us that are altoholics, we'll pounce on the additional character slots. Many of us will even do so regardless of price. Chances are, the Cathar, Makeb, the new level cap, and additional character slots will all be in the same pack available for download for a small price later this year if the survey that surfaced a short while ago is any indication. If we don't have to pay for it, I'd be shocked. Of course, I wouldn't complain. Would be nice if they were free, but given history with other companies regarding similar things (or rather just knowing EA), I'm not holding my breath on it being free. Better to believe we'll have to pay for it and be surprised when we don't than to believe it will be free and be furious when we have to pay.

There's no real reason behind it besides being a fun little RP item. The Jawa you got it from said you were now an honorary Jawa so you got the cloak to RP you're a jawa. Rather useless for non-RPers and non-collectors, but a cute item to remember the quest.

The reason why operations fail to get replacement players is because of one little option. Go to the LFG panel, click on the button above the black hole commendations award for operations (choose selections for group finder queue), and then look at the bottom of the resulting window. The Match With In-progress Groups button is not ticked by default for operations, and thus it's very rare if an operations group will be filled if people leave during the run. Either Bioware needs to tick this box by default or have a message stating you won't be put into an in-progress group unless the box is ticked. It's frustating to be almost done with an operation only to fail because no one comes to replace those that left. It's just one of the many annoyances and frustrations with the LFG system that will hopefully be ironed out in the coming months.

Ever read the Code of Conduct and Terms of Service? Just because there is a filter does not give you the freedom to use vulgar language. http://www.swtor.com/legalnotices/rulesofconduct In the end, this is Bioware's game and their forums. If they don't want you to use offensive language (with or without the filter), then you either abide by their rules or you leave.

Reminds me of Manifest Destiny and the old American West. People moved out west to claim land for farms and ranches yet failed to see the people who lived there first (the Native Americans). When the Native Americans fought back, they were slaughtered and/or forced to move. Now they're a rare sight across the United States unless you're near a reservation which often is no where near their ancestral home. Also reminds me of those that stay in their house when a massive flood is going to occur. Their excuse is that their entire lives are in that house and they fail to see material possessions can be replaced. You can't take it with you when you die so no sense dying over it. Then they end up dead when the flood hits them like a ton of bricks. Replace flood with bombing, hurricane, tornado, fire, etc. People cling to the dumbest things and ultimately it can lead to an even worse situation for them. The people on the destination server have every right to the names they picked and not be bullied out of it because they played less than another player. It's not their fault they happened to pick a name someone else also picked on another server. No player is better than another. We are all equal when it comes to names. Just pick another one. In all honesty, we knew Bioware was going to eventually merge servers. You could've moved your characters a month ago, been forced to rename, and had a chance at a good rename. Instead, you decided to putz around clinging to a dead server and now are crying because your name will be lost and your chance of getting even your second choice is slim to nil. Think of the rename as your chance to actually be creative. Pick something no one else thought of. In the transfers, I lost a grand total of 1 name but every other name I had was unique, including my legacy name. There are plenty of random name generators as well as baby name sites to use for ideas. There's millions of names you can pick. If you're going to quit over something so simple as a bunch of pixels attached to a name ... don't let the digital door hit you on the way out. And seek professional help if digital pixels are so important to you. Do remember, it's a game, not real life. Ultimately, names matter little in a game. Your friends should know you by the name you wish to be called so it shouldn't matter if your toon has the same name or not. It's ultimately the player who's being talked to, not the character. If your character is Abcde (and yes, that's a real name [ab c dee]) and your real name is Bob, your friends can call you Bob instead of Abcde or whatever character you happen to be on. It's just pixels.

With the communication quest in the Talz area on Ilum, you can pretty much avoid fighting any of them if you walk up to the communication poles at the right angle. You line of sight the talz and thus they don't aggro. I did this yesterday and only fought one pack, and that was because I fought that pack on purpose. I did have an issue with killing daily quest mobs, particularly the Talz, for a while. Their knockback was a pain. But once I geared up a bit and geared up my healer, I didn't have as much of an issue. Then I realized I can hit a few of the communication poles without aggroing them which saved me a lot of frustration. I've been doing the dailies only on a marauder with Quinn who's now in tionese/columi. Quinn's also in tionese/columi. I've only gotten better gear recently (post 1.3) so I was doing dailies with mods from the daily vendor and crafted ones until recently. Eventually, I'll do the dailies on my other toons. I'm just being lazy about it. If you're having issues, either gear up your companion, change to a different companion, or figure out which poles you can sneak up on and click without aggroing them.

I actually just realized this, but likely the reason why we don't get ported back to where we were when when queued is because some flashpoints require us to return to the console afterward to get our social and dark/light side points. I know Red Reaper requires this anyway. I'm sure Cademimu, Mandalorian Raiders, Hammer Station, Colicoid Wargames, and Athiss also require returning to the console after you finish the flashpoint to get your social and light/dark side points. The other flashpoints have the quests started by NPCs and don't require you to return to that NPC afterward. So the other flashpoints could teleport us back to where we were, but it's likely a technical limitation as to why they don't. To have half the flashpoints teleport us back while the other half don't would lead to confusion. So better to err on the side of caution and have none teleport us back. Simply put, Bioware has to remove the need to return to the console after finishing a flashpoint for those that require the console before they can put in the ability to port us back to where we were when we entered the flashpoint.

I get this, too, from time to time. I just summon another companion and then resummon my normal one. Still shows the lock icon but they're out. Zoning into another area also fixes it more often than not. Rather annoying bug, though.

The black boxes mean nothing. If you have bloom on, turn it off. The black boxes are just advertisement stands. There's a bug with bloom that makes the advertisements invisible if bloom is on. I tested this myself by going to this black box, turning off bloom, and the advertisement posters appeared on them. Turned bloom back on and the posters vanished again. As for the event itself, I do believe the Rakghoul one started on a Sunday so an event doesn't actually need a server maintanence to happen. Chances are we'll see it within the next 2 weeks or so, though. I just hope this one doesn't have bugs like the last one. I'm still sitting on 590 rakghoul DNA samples that I never got to spend because the damn things got stuck in my mailbox on the last few days of the event when I tried mailing them to an alt so they could buy stuff. Customer service didn't do a damn thing despite me using the keyword Jupiter to elevate my ticket. All they did was close my ticket without doing anything several days after the event ended. Hopefully the next event fairs far better and with fewer bugs.

Scenarios in WoW won't be soloable. Supposedly there is a Proving Grounds scenario which may be a trainee type thing for single players, but beyond being datamined, nothing is known on it. Scenarios were designed for 2+ players of any combination (i.e. a full DPS group can do it) and were meant to replace group quests. They'll also likely be level 90 only with the exception of the Theramore scenario which will be part of the MoP opening event. In all honesty, I see no reason for soloable instances beyond helping players learn to play their class. But class stories are supposed to teach you that. Class stories are often balanced around your class's abilities and without the use of another player aiding you. Unfortunately, so many either beg other players for help or out level the quest so don't learn much doing it. If soloable instances are implemented, they shouldn't award anything higher than loot equal to the highest level blues you can get. They should also limit it so only 1 player can ever be in them. No grouping up to overpower the content. They should also scale with your level and gear so you can't outlevel or outgear it. Once you hit a certain gear threshold, there would be no point continuing with them because the gear that you get from it won't go up in quailty. Only reason to continue with it would be for the challenge and not the gear. This is an MMO, though. Group play and playing with others is the whole point. Possibly a soloable instance can be used to help gear up players to a certain point, but the loot should never be more than 2 tiers behind current content. Like Explosive Conflict awards the best gear, then flashpoints, then soloable instances behind that. Soloable instances could be used to help get players ready to do flashpoints, but they shouldn't be used to get you ready for operations beyond learning tactics.

There's a quest chain on Hoth for Republic where they get help from the Empire concerning the Brotherhood group there. It's available to everyone on Republic rather than just one class. If you go dark sided with the choice at the end, you can turn on the Imperial who helped you. If you go light sided, you can try to convince him to defect. Doesn't work, but he does show he's willing to help out the Republic. If you go dark sided first and then level another toon light sided, makes you feel like a jerk betraying the Empire. I love the voice of the Imperial commander during that chain, and some of his dialogue with the Republic commander is pretty funny. The Republic also get a quest in the same area on Hoth regarding a Chiss who wants to defect. He dies before you get to him, though. The Imperial Agent also gets a variety of quests to help out the other side. The ending of Chapter 3 if you play light side is quite a twist. From the looks of it, the Agent will be able to help out the Republic again when the stories are expanded upon. It's a rather interesting twist in various stories to see your character helping out the other side. War isn't just strictly black and white. Putting in quests to help the other side or get help from them shows the greyer side to war. It makes you question your loyalties to the side you're on or makes you more solidified in your choice. Seems the Republic get the odd quest here and there to help out the Empire which is available to all, but the Empire only has quests to help the Republic during class stories. Hopefully they expand that a bit more so quests to help the other side are more widely available. Certainly adds some entertainment value and makes you wonder where the storyline will go.

The PTS can't be made free to play. Why? 1.) Lot of players would only ever play on the PTS leading to far less revenue for the game itself. 2.) The PTS is meant for testing purposes and is only up for patches. Bugs need to be found and reported. Any person who's tested a beta knows that many people play it and don't test it. These people only whine when they run into bugs rather than reporting them and thus they're not reported at the frequency they should be and leads to a crappy release product. I'm sure many who were in SWTOR's beta likely didn't really test it at all. 3.) Characters would be wiped regularly leaving people angry when they lose progress on a character. Look at how attached people are to something as simple as a name. Character wiping in beta was one thing since people knew the game was in beta. The game is now live so people want to keep their characters, not see them wiped every few months. 4.) The PTS would likely have queue times because of everyone trying to get on to play (rather than test) and thus those that are trying to actually test likely won't have the chance to do so. Thus the point of the PTS would be null and void. 5.) Money. Why would Bioware/EA give players a free to play server when they're giving players up to level 15 free soon? There's many other reasons I'm sure others can think of, but there's feasibly little a person can argue that would make the PTS being a free to play server make sense. We're getting up to level 15 free soon enough. That's plenty. Those that hate the game before then will quit without having spent any money. Those that love the game will buy it. Playing up to level 15 is enough of a free demo. The issue with people not logging into the PTS to test things has to due with character copying as well as the client itself. Having to fill out a survey to get your character copied is a pain in the rear. You then might not get the character you wanted copied or they have the wrong gear because they were copied from a backup save from a month ago. People also don't want to download the client because of how large it is. Some people don't have the bandwidth to spare to download it. Others don't have the drive space. Not everyone runs on super internet connections and hard drives so huge you can have the Library of Congress on your system and still have space left over. There's also the fact that many may just not know the PTS even exists to test things. You'd be amazed how many aren't even aware there's a forum for the game. Only a small fraction of the playerbase ever posts or reads the forums (or Twitter or Facebook). Most never come here so most of them likely don't even know of the PTS or how to access it. Making the PTS free to play won't change how many people know it exists. It'll just make it more of a hassle to actually test anything.

I've seen people selling 41 crit magenta patterns on the GTN and I've seen red, blue, and green 41 crit, 41 power, and 41 endurance patterns being sold for daily coms. >.> So the non-black core crystals do exist. You just aren't looking hard enough. Bug an artifice if none are on the GTN. Or level one yourself.

Never seen that chest myself nor anything like it. I don't believe there is an orange version of the chest. That's not to say one won't be added. Make a suggestion for it in the suggestion forums.

All players on destination servers are eligible for the rewards. That means if you were on the server to start or transferred to the server. So everyone is eligible as long as their account is active and they aren't banned by the 31st of July. Those who fail to transfer and are still on origin servers by July 31st won't get the rewards as well as those that are banned and those that have inactive accounts.

An SSD doesn't change much. I bought one myself and it hardly did anything for my loading times. >.> Given that people with high and low end systems are having issues, it's obviously the game itself and not our systems.

According to the known issues thread on the customer service forum, this is not listed as a known issue. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=403398 So either Bioware's in denial that the issue exists or it's working as intended. Customer service for this game is on the subpar end since quite frequently you get told a bug is intended which it's clearly a bug. Restarting a flashpoint when a group member DC's and returns cannot be intended. >.> It's frustrating when you get close to the end and have to restart because of this.

You can solo everything up to Colicoid just fine. I've done it on every single class as early as level 47. Only advanced class I don't have is powertech and vanguard since I have a mercenary and commando instead, but those 2 can solo them easily, too. Red Reaper on up you can get in LFG. So the only one you can't run at 50 if you outleveled it is Colicoid. You either have to make your own group the old fashioned way or live without it. Maybe Bioware can add Colicoid to the LFG random daily for 50s or at least make it selectable for a 50 but not randomed for the daily. Or they can just make the instance soloable. >.> Well, guess they could give Colicoid an heroic version, too.

I did False Emperor on normal yesterday. Finished it and gained 19 affection with Quinn despite him not having been out during the run. So apparently I got one option that netted me 20 affection and another that resulted in me getting -1. Did it on heroic later with him out since we lost a DPS and couldn't get another one. I had the highest presence and my Quinn was one of the better geared companions. I still didn't see the affection gains so I'm not sure where he gained/lost affection. Didn't finish the run (Serevin enraged at like 10% ) so not sure if I would've gained 19 with him again or if the normal run was a fluke. I've seen this on and off for a while. Take my guess, Bioware did it to stop people from canceling out on a conversation when they see their companions lose affection, send their companions away, and then not lose any affection. Or it could be a bug ... and one that's been around a while. If you know it occurs at certain points like flashpoints and you end up losing affection at the end of the run, just pull out another companion before hand that actually gains affection. Or you can give them gifts or do dailies to get their affection back up afterward. You can also try submitting a bug report in game if you can replicate it reliably.

How is this an issue? Plenty of people play both sides to see the story. Limit players to one side and they only see half of the game.

In all honesty, I wouldn't get an SSD before anything else. I bought one myself expecting a drastic reduction in loading times and it shaved off like 30 seconds tops. It wasn't worth the money. If you want an SSD for your operating system, go for it. But I didn't find it worth the money for SWTOR at all. And with regards to everything else, if you run 32-bit Windows 7, it doesn't recognize more than 4 GB of memory. So unless you have 64-bit Windows 7 or plan to upgrade to it, going beyond 4 GB of memory is a waste of money. Since you said you have Windows 7 on 64MB, I'm assuming you mean you have the 64-bit Windows 7. If that's the case, you can certainly get more memory if you want. Just make sure it's compatible with your motherboard. CPU is often the bottleneck and is where I'm having issues myself. I run an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53 GHz processor myself, but I plan to upgrade to an i7 later this year or early next year. Have to buy a new motherboard and memory to go with it unfortunately. I'm looking at $600 easy right there. Best you can do is watch sales and shop around. Educate yourself as you go. Don't buy the first item you see because you fell in love with it and think it's a good price. Get a good idea of when sales appear and watch prices. You might get some good deals. Sales tend to happen around holidays although some places have them at roughly the same time every month. Usually around weekends. Also watch rebates. Sometimes you might be able to snag something at an exceptional deal with a rebate included, but some places are a bit ... pissy about giving them out. But that may be due to people not filing out the form correctly. I just bought myself a new video card and read the company (XFX) was notorious for not giving out rebates. I just got the e-mail the other day that I'll have my rebate in 8-10 weeks. I spent the past month watching prices on the video card I bought. Now I'm planning on spending the next few months watching motherboard and CPU prices. If you can afford to wait to upgrade, do so. Just watch prices and pounce when you have a better idea of them. Nothing worse than buying an item on a Wednesday only to find it's $20 cheaper the following Monday because it went on sale.

I did that once myself. You live and learn. Next time, mail the item to the toon in question first and have them pull the mods out. Mail them some credits to pull out the mods if they don't have the money. Not much you can do now. If the item is BoE, you can just buy another one off the GTN anyway.

They really should've had the speeder perks require either buying the previous perk OR the actual skill from the class trainer to unlock the next perk. This was quite a large oversight. Hopefully Bioware takes this into account with the next patch and changes it. Otherwise the perk is a credit sink with no benefits for anyone who was over level 25 with at least the rank 1 speeder skill before patch 1.3 hit.

WoW still has the incentives for queuing as a tank/healer. It's called "Call to Arms" and only appears if there's too few tanks or healers in the queue. More often than not, tanks have it but healers get it from time to time. Even with this incentive and LFG being cross server in WoW, queues can still end up at 10 minutes for healers and 30 minutes for DPS. Holiday bosses aren't worth running anymore. Queue as a healer and it's a 10 minute wait. Queue as a DPS and you're waiting 20-30 minutes. I missed my DPS queue 3 times the other day because I went AFK and the queue hit while I was away. So I spent an hour for one measely boss that lasts 3 minutes tops. You'd think something so easy would have relatively short queues (under 5 minutes for DPS at least), but it doesn't. What can SWTOR do to reduce queues and entice more healers/tanks to queue? For me, I hate healing without addons. I also healed for the last 5 1/2 years in WoW. I'm tired of it. I came here for a fresh start hoping I could actually DPS. I do tank in WoW on and off, but I'm certainly not good enough to do it regularly. I leveled a jedi guardian and sith assassin as tanks all the way to 50, but I'm no where near confident enough to tank a flashpoint. Doesn't help that you can't even craft tanking mods so I can't help but feel like I'm gimping myself by using power or crit mods instead. I'm so stuck in the WoW mentality of gearing that breaking out of that is hard. Crit or attack power for a tank is laughable in WoW but seems to be perfectly fine here. The gearing just confuses the hell out of me. So many stats and stat combinations with enhancements that I don't know if putting this enhancement into my gear makes me a better tank or make me a healer's nightmare. I do think there is 1 thing Bioware can do that will decrease queue times: mutli-spec. No one wants to constantly respec. It's a massive credit sink, especially for those that have little money. Add in multi-spec and that will widen the pool drastically. Everyone but sniper/gunslinger and sentinel/marauder will be able to have a DPS spec and a tank or healer spec if they choose. Multi-spec should've come with LFG in all honesty. The respec character perk is a nice idea, but I don't see that going too far. People have to redo their bars every time they respec and then the credit cost on top of that. If anything, the respec cost and the hassle with redoing bars is a massive disincentive for people to play any role beyond their main role. It's also a disincentive for some players to attempt to experiment with different roles.