For a lot of people this SWTOR is an MMO that happens to be a sequel to KOTOR. For another large group of people SWTOR is the sequel to KOTOR that happens to be an MMO. For that second group, knowing that the continuation of the KOTOR story was out there waiting to be experienced but choosing not to was simply not an option. That, or wait until KOTOR 3, which will be coming out shortly after Warcraft 4. Thus, they - I'll be honest and say "we" - find ourselves as single player RPGers in an MMO world.

Is it just me or did the load times get significantly worse with 1.2?

I loved DAoC and to this day I think SWTOR would benefit immensely from just copy/paste-ing its RvR feature, but holy God was there grinding. The name of the game while leveling was literally to find a group, stake a claim to an area of a dungeon, and grind mobs for hours for a few bubbles.

Killing Jedi/Sith is hard but not impossible. If the Sith were that unpopular they would have been overthrown at some point in the thousand year history of the Empire. There are plenty of Republic citizens who hate their government, but that doesn't necessarily translate to "most normal folks hate the Republic".

Can you give an example or two? I was thinking of doing this exact same thing (making a Sith Jedi) but I'm a bit wary of my Sith saying something like "What is a Sith pureblood? I've never heard of these people." Obviously I could ignore it a few times but if it happens often enough it could get annoying.

Why on Earth would anyone run through the same handful of FPs dozens of times to get a piece of Columi gear, so they can run through the same FPs on hard mode dozens of times to get a piece of Rakata gear? At least with rolling alts you get a change in scenery/story.

Let's not forget, the Republic might claim to represent the Will of the People, but only if the people support the Republic. Your people signed some treaty 10,000 years ago submitting you to a foreign power, and now you want to rule yourselves? Tough luck, sucker, the freedom-loving Republic doesn't put up with any of that nonsense. You can check in any time you want, but you can never leave. They essentially view themselves as the legitimate government of the entire galaxy, exactly like the Empire. If you're not in the Republic you're A) a criminal-run cesspit, B) too primitive for anyone to care about, or C) an enemy of the state. There is no truly independent, coequal ally of the Republic.

Fear of punishment will not keep people playing. They need to be motivated to play either because it's actually fun or for the desire of a reward. Frankly, it stops being actually fun around your thirtieth or so time discovering the long-lost Imperial ship or your two thousandth round of Huttball.

I really can't stress this enough, but it's not *********** real life. THAT's how I justify quitting in a game. It's something people do for fun. It's you who needs to grow up, you've obviously confused a video game with real life.

Exactly. When someone loses they're a lot less likely to carefully analyze why they lost, adjust their build/playstyle accordingly, and find some like-minded people to make a pre-made with than they are to say "well, **** this, back to raiding".

That's well and good, but you need to realize that many (most?) don't think like that. It's very rare that someone finds MMO warzones "fun" in and of themselves. What keeps most coming back to them is the sense of accomplishment, however slight. As long as they got some comms for participating, they felt like they accomplished something, and the activity was therefore not a waste of their time. And as for this: When I screw up at my job, I don't get to just say "but I tried really hard!" and have my boss totally forgive me, so I don't really feel the need to pay that one forward.

I know for me FPs are just not very accessible. I only have time for maybe 4 hours of play a night. So standing around in the fleet makes quickly starts to feel like a colossal waste of my precious free time. An LFG tool would be a huge improvement, so I could wait for a FP group but not feel like I'm wasting time.

*** is wrong with everyone feeling like a winner? It's a GAME. It's not real life. I KNOW you can't always win or get what you want because I live that reality for about 9 hours a day at work. If everyone paying a sub comes away with a positive emotion is that so effing terrible? And no, I'm not talking about that feeling of accomplishment that you got back in the day when you walked 20 miles to school uphill both ways.

Meh, I guess I'm in the minority here but I can't stand Thana. She represents everything wrong with the Sith. She's a borderline sociopath who will attack other Sith rather than share a speck of glory. People like her are the only reason the Empire hasn't already roflstomped the Republic. If the Sith could just be on the same team for two seconds the war would be over.

I'm a Sith Inquisitor, and I like most of my companions. The thing I really hate is how, at least for males, we only get one romance option. And she is A) a weird-looking alien and B) a goody-two-shoes who hates DS choices.

Two big reasons: 1) The Empire is winning. The Treaty of Coruscant was not a treaty forged between powers of equal strength who had fought each other to a standstill. The Empire had sacked the Republic capital and killed their head of state. the Republic was forced to cede almost half its territory. Sneak attack or no, if the Republic was unable to put up much of any resistance in the first war, I don't see them doing much better in the position they're in now. 2) The Sith Code is superior to that of the Jedi. The Jedi at the best of times are emotionless cloistered monks. As seen in the Mandalorian Wars, they will even leave the Republic to rot on occasion rather than risk dirtying their hands with fighting. They don't use their power to help the people of the galaxy, they hide away and hoard it for themselves. Now obviously "helping people" isn't a big part of Sith philosophy, but at least they don't pretend otherwise. The Sith are a more honest and pure expression of the power of the force. And say what you will about Palpatine, but he DID bring peace to the galaxy for a time. Under Imperial rule the factional infighting of the Republic is not tolerated. I really doubt there were many banking conglomerates blockading planets during the period of the Galactic Empire.