I'll sign, but I don't think you'll see any reduction in money sink costs until after the F2P architecture is finalized. I believe that part of the reason sinks are abundant and high is that they want to slow progression among the general population (those not willing to grind out dailies constantly) until then.

We were told at the Guild Summit back in February that "multi-spec, not just dual spec" was on the agenda. That was also back before the game population crashed and they found the need to develop a F2P option, though. My conjecture is that you won't see any significant alleviation of money sinks until November. They probably want players as stalled as possible on progression until they can make the F2P conversion and have enough new content to grind for following that. I just hope they don't wind up selling it in the Cartel Coin shop, but I wouldn't be surprised at this point.

I am told that playing a LS consular is rewarding for people who invest themselves in the deeper Jedi lore. A DS consular, however, plays like a dumb joke because BioWare didn't/couldn't make you face concrete negative consequences for being ridiculously evil.

Perhaps it's a necessary side effect of getting the player characters through the algorithm of enemies and the constant effort to make the player feel like a champion despite the mundane nature of many of the missions. All the same, the more I see supposed anti-Force characters and techniques the less cool they becomes. If there really are that many ways to trump psychic supermen with ESP, then it only serves to the undercut the accomplishments of the Force-blind player classes that manage to pull it off and corrode the prestige of the Force-sensitive classes. Part of the reasons that the trooper, smuggler, bounty hunter, and agent are integral characters to the plot of TOR is that they're uniquely skilled enough to rack up the high score against named Jedi and Sith NPCs. And abundance of characters trying to look awesome by apparently being skilled anti-Force spec-ops does more to undermine the heroism of those PCs than it does bring the Force-users down to normalcy, which I doubt any of the Force-user players actually want.

I created this topic in Star Wars Discussion a few weeks ago but it didn't generate much interest, so I figured I'd see if the regulars in the Story and Lore forum would like to ponder this. t's been a common misconception among Star Wars fans for years that the so-called "balance" in the Force referred to the equal, counteracting dichotomy of light and darkness. Many mistook the Force for some Taoist yin-yang concept in which good and evil, peace and passion, and serenity and violence had to be in some kind of metaphysical equilibrium. The lore does not support this analysis, and in fact portrays the dark side as an unnatural corruption that eats away at the Force from the inside like a cancer. It's not supposed to be there and the galaxy would be better off without it gnawing away at the Force and life itself. Anakin Skywalker brought balance to the Force by destroying the Sith Order and vanquishing the darkness, not bringing light and dark into parity. And then early last year there was an story arc in the Clone Wars cartoon about a planet called "Mortis" in an alternate plane of reality inhabited by creatures called "Force Wielders." They are former Celestials who became living embodiments of the light side, dark side, and the "Force in balance." Considering that originally there was no "light side", and this was a fan term created to contrast the corrupt and unnatural dark side within the Living Force, it's kind of surprising to see avatars of darkness and light. The dark being is called "The Son", the light being is "The Daughter", and balance is "The Father." Basically, The Father keeps his children on Mortis because it's the only way he can assure that their powers remain in check. He says during the course of the story that too much darkness or light will destroy reality and doom the galaxy, so he needs to make sure that The Son and the The Daughter don't overpower one another or fight too harshly. That's pretty much the exact opposite of what the Force was portrayed as being up until that point. The Jedi believe, and their belief is canonically the "most right" perspective on the Force according to LucasArts, that the dark side is what unbalances the Force. This would indicate that the Jedi are completely wrong about something pretty important and that destroying the dark side is ultimately a bad idea. The Mortis characters and ontology get revisited in a book titled "Apocalypse", which was the most recent book in the "Fate of the Jedi" series and hit stores about a year after the cartoons aired. In the book, Luke Skywalker and his Jedi allies team up with Sith to stop a potent space aberration doing what ancient interstellar abominations do. Luke concludes that Anakin's decision not to replace The Father as the one to keep equilibrium between the light and the dark caused ripples in the Force that lead to most of the conflicts 60 years after Anakin went to Mortis in the Clone Wars cartoon. He also decides that the Jedi and Sith orders themselves must become the new Daughter and Son to maintain balance in the Force. I then considered that the words of characters are not essentially canon. Characters are not necessarily correct nor are their opinions representative of lore facts unless affirmed by the creators. Then I learned that in the DVD set for the 3rd season of Clone Wars, Lucas says, "The Core of the Force. I mean you got the Dark Side, the Light Side, one is selfless, one is selfish, and you want to keep them in balance." So does this mean that big G has swung 180 degrees to the other side an changed the Force back from a black & white medieval morality play in space to Lao Tzu in space? I'm finding it pretty hard to reconcile this conflicting data, unless I'm missing some Leland Che spin-doctoring. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lucas is more than merely "okay" with the Mortis arc. The Clone Wars aren't like the EU, where he just skims things over for anything outrageous and waves it off otherwise; he personally supervises each episode. That story didn't get through without his full sanction. I also reject that it happened but it didn't happen, because it's clear that it wasn't any more of a metaphor than anything else in greater story. The Ones inhabited a world existing in another dimension created through the Force specifically so that the Father could keep his children from wreaking havoc. It wasn't all a dream that Anakin had because he drank too much blue milk, and even it were a Force vision, then it shouldn't have shown him something completely opposite of the nature of the Force. Mainly, The Father wouldn't have been the agent of balancing the scales between light and dark, yet he was just that. I'm not going to dismiss the EU books because some call them BS, because that doesn't change the fact that LA considers them a part of canon. EU material is only not canon if overruled by LA or Lucas himself, and the man in charge is pretty serious about correcting anything that messes with his vision too much. In the past, they've had to write books where the Potentium was discredited so that there could be no doubt that the light and dark side are physically real and not just a flawed way of categorizing powers. The Potentium and theories like it were in direct conflict with Lucas' vision and how he wanted the Force to be portrayed. If Apocalypse had Luke Skywalker, probably the most important Jedi in Star Wars, saying something totally off about how the Force works then I'd expect Lucas or Leland Che to veto it in the draft phase. And yet they didn't. It seems like they're going back to the Western overview of certain Eastern notions and saying that the dark side has to be a part of the Force somehow. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a final note, there's now a comic series called Dawn of the Jedi that explores history of the Je'daii precursors to the Jedi Order. They similarly strive to keep darkness in light in literal balance because Tython breaks into violent storms if either side of the Force gains too much strength. Je'daii go so far as to banish those too attached to light or darkness to one of Tython's two moons in order to regain their balance through meditation and contemplation of the opposite moon to which they're assigned. For example, a dark sider is banished to Bogan and encouraged to reflect on Ashla's luminescence. We know that the Je'daii transform into the Jedi who believe that the Force in balance is light, but one must also consider the events leading to that change in dogma. The Rakata Infinite Empire is led by a race a Force-sensitives who rely on the dark side and use dark side-powered hyperdrives. Their existence probably kicks the influence of the dark side up to 11 with heavy bass, so it would make sense if the Force had to find equilibrium by converting the Je'daii into a light side organization as a means of long term damage control.

Lucas is more than merely "okay" with the Mortis arc. The Clone Wars aren't like the EU, where he just skims things over for anything outrageous and waves it off otherwise; he personally supervises each episode. That story didn't get through without his full sanction. I also reject that it happened but it didn't happen, because it's clear that it wasn't any more of a metaphor than anything else in greater story. The Ones inhabited a world existing in another dimension created through the Force specifically so that the Father could keep his children from wreaking havoc. It wasn't all a dream that Anakin had because he drank too much blue milk, and even it were a Force vision, then it shouldn't have shown him something completely opposite of the nature of the Force. Mainly, The Father wouldn't have been the agent of balancing the scales between light and dark, yet he was just that. I'm not going to dismiss the EU books because some call them BS, because that doesn't change the fact that LA considers them a part of canon. EU material is only not canon if overruled by LA or Lucas himself, and the man in charge is pretty serious about correcting anything that messes with his vision too much. In the past, they've had to write books where the Potentium was discredited so that there could be no doubt that the light and dark side are physically real and not just a flawed way of categorizing powers. The Potentium and theories like it were in direct conflict with Lucas' vision and how he wanted the Force to be portrayed. If Apocalypse had Luke Skywalker, probably the most important Jedi in Star Wars, saying something totally off about how the Force works then I'd expect Lucas or Leland Che to veto it in the draft phase. And yet they didn't. It seems like they're going back to the Western overview of certain Eastern notions and saying that the dark side has to be a part of the Force somehow.

Wasn't sure if this belonged here or in Story and Lore, but I'll hedge my bet here since I'll be citing non-TOR Expanded Universe sources. It's been a common misconception among Star Wars fans for years that the so-called "balance" in the Force referred to the equal, counteracting dichotomy of light and darkness. Many mistook the Force for some Taoist yin-yang concept in which good and evil, peace and passion, and serenity and violence had to be in some kind of metaphysical equilibrium. The lore does not support this analysis, and in fact portrays the dark side as an unnatural corruption that eats away at the Force from the inside like a cancer. It's not supposed to be there and the galaxy would be better off without it gnawing away at the Force and life itself. Anakin Skywalker brought balance to the Force by destroying the Sith Order and vanquishing the darkness, not bringing light and dark into parity. And then early last year there was an story arc in the Clone Wars cartoon about a planet called "Mortis" in an alternate plane of reality inhabited by creatures called "Force Wielders." They are former Celestials who became living embodiments of the light side, dark side, and the "Force in balance." Considering that originally there was no "light side", and this was a fan term created to contrast the corrupt and unnatural dark side within the Living Force, it's kind of surprising to see avatars of darkness and light. The dark being is called "The Son", the light being is "The Daughter", and balance is "The Father." Basically, The Father keeps his children on Mortis because it's the only way he can assure that their powers remain in check. He says during the course of the story that too much darkness or light will destroy reality and doom the galaxy, so he needs to make sure that The Son and the The Daughter don't overpower one another or fight too harshly. That's pretty much the exact opposite of what the Force was portrayed as being up until that point. The Jedi believe, and their belief is canonically the "most right" perspective on the Force according to LucasArts, that the dark side is what unbalances the Force. This would indicate that the Jedi are completely wrong about something pretty important and that destroying the dark side is ultimately a bad idea. The Mortis characters and ontology get revisited in a book titled "Apocalypse", which was the most recent book in the "Fate of the Jedi" series and hit stores about a year after the cartoons aired. In the book, Luke Skywalker and his Jedi allies team up with Sith to stop a potent space aberration doing what ancient interstellar abominations do. Luke concludes that Anakin's decision not to replace The Father as the one to keep equilibrium between the light and the dark caused ripples in the Force that lead to most of the conflicts 60 years after Anakin went to Mortis in the Clone Wars cartoon. He also decides that the Jedi and Sith orders themselves must become the new Daughter and Son to maintain balance in the Force. I then considered that the words of characters are not essentially canon. Characters are not necessarily correct nor are their opinions representative of lore facts unless affirmed by the creators. Then I learned that in the DVD set for the 3rd season of Clone Wars, Lucas says, "The Core of the Force. I mean you got the Dark Side, the Light Side, one is selfless, one is selfish, and you want to keep them in balance." So does this mean that big G has swung 180 degrees to the other side an changed the Force back from a black & white medieval morality play in space to Lao Tzu in space? I'm finding it pretty hard to reconcile this conflicting data, unless I'm missing some Leland Che spin-doctoring.

Thanks in large part to the Disney Corporation lobbying every time the trademark for Mickey Mouse is about to expire, copyright extends for 70 years after the death of the creator. Since George Lucas has declared that the story ends for him with episode VI and has left strict instructions for there to be no more films, we won't see any authentic (non-fan) movies in our lifetimes.

This discussion makes me wonder if Tinybaby/Babyhead ever bought a TOR account.

Proof, please. No. The burden of proof lies on the individual making the claim. It is not my job to find the quotes for people asserting their existence. If they have "in fact" said that many times, it shouldn't be too hard for you to drudge up an example, then. Bear in mind there's a difference between taking control of the game and rescinding their grant of license to use the Star Wars IP.

Proof, please.