Actually no-I haven't seen a Star Wars film since the travesty of Phantom Menace. Pandering to fans by including all the geezers from the first trilogy didn't entice me either. What next part of the story? The outlander with control of the Eternal Fleet will do... what? It's not as if players will be allowed to stomp the Republic/Empire/both, more likely that a contrived plot will strip the outlander of said fleet and everything will be reset to the same Republic vs Empire status quo, making the entire two 'expansions' nothing more than a bad dream (except for Lana and Theron romances-those will keep going even as every other NPC fades into the background).

Actually people might also do the class missions because they are required for companions, ship, rewards in legacy, etc. I found stories like the consular to be boring at best, ridiculous at worst (a couple of fights and suddenly I'm so special that you give me a title awarded TWICE in the history of the order? Really? What does the Knight get after fighting the Emperor-the much more common title of Master? Whoopee!). BTW weren't you were one of the people that argued so vociferously against cross-server matching? Why if all you're interested in is solo story mode?

In other words completely forget the way the previous expansion was designed because this attempt at stringing along players will "totally work" this time?

Feel free to not queue if it's such a problem- someone else will take the spot and the match will still happen. Blame EA for making it the most efficient means of collecting command xp- less than 10 minutes of Huttball stupidity for 500 xp? Players would be stupid to not take advantage of it. Besides, with all the QQ over mercenaries it seems like PVP is a joke anyway. Perhaps everyone should L2P?

Really? Theron is 'mommy issues central' mixed with 'I really actually suck as a spy' and Lana is 'restrained to the point of immobility Sith, who are normally all about passion'. I'm not sure how they have more depth than any of the originals. At this point I wonder if the writers would have preferred that Lana had been the starting companion for Imperial characters and Theron for Republic. If EA is going to force-feed them to players why even waste time with other companions?

Agreed- Wrex's situation on Virmire was a lot more compelling than 'bland guy vs marine I just met and never used'. Don't forget Revan/HK. It's as if the writers are either telling themselves or being told by higher-ups that "People liked those old games, so do stuff like that".

In the past you could have run heroics for crystals to get gear (or warzones for a welfare set if you wanted the set bnous). It wasn't perfect but it wasn't a lottery. I never got anything from flashpoints but I didn't run the hard modes often either (and will never run operations). As people have said so often, if you only play the story why bother with the grind at all? I got through Eternal Cutscenes without upgrading one piece of gear, and pvp has bolster so gear isn't needed there either (maybe in ranked, I don't know). Crafting is pretty cheap if a bit time-consuming, and can provide 228 gear (almost as good as the 230 mods you may or may not ever get enough of).

You mean like if you saw 'your exclusive super-special subscriber rewards' being offered for sale in the cartel shop? Sometimes life happens, right?

If anything it would be a cartel purchase-why would they give anything away? Watch for players upset that just anyone could get a companion though, just like they do whenever anyone suggests putting their super-special 'subscriber reward' companions for sale in the cartel market.

No, you get some other Dashade. I guess Khem was too hard to implement given the player's choice at the end of the class story.

And I've gotten gifts, junk, schematics that require group content to craft, worthless orange shells, green gear with mods barely better than what I can craft, and a pet. My cup truly runneth over. It'd take me a day of grinding to get nearly all of that, and it would have been more useful.(at least the Alliance crates drop shells by class and not just random garbage). I guess that means that RNG really does mean RNG-it hasn't gotten me gear any faster. Grinding companions to rank 50 influence is what has gotten me gear faster-so I guess thank you EA for making crafting relevant again? Too bad about Biochem though-only good for implants.

How is it possible to 'invalidate the system'? Wasn't the big hullabaloo all about playing the way you want to earn gear instead of being forced to enter warzones/operations?

That would just mean their fabled 'metrics' would show that players like heroics (or open world questing)- what's the problem?

So players need to screenshot Ranos in slave gear now before the next patch?

It's not the age, it's the master/padawan dynamic and the apparently emotional immaturity of most of the women (only Kira seems remotely adult in any of her interactions). Sleeping with an emotionally adolescent Nadia or Ashara (or a bratty Jaesa) feels wrong to me, just like it did with Mako.

Because all Force users are part of the super secret club and know each other!

Try warzones- they tend to be over quickly and you don't really even have to participate. Just attack a few times to get medals and wait for it to end.

Which is foolish. My trooper would side with the Republic, my warrior would serve the Empire, my inquisitor would conquer both (or at minimum manipulate both), and my smuggler just wants to skim from the treasury (and find out what the hell happened to his wife). Why does EA assume that every character would want to be in the role of 'caught in the middle', even if they have control of a super fleet that spanked both sides 5 years earlier?

Of the MMO? Quite possibly.

Not surprising since Avellone tried the same thing in the D&D game he wrote. Apparently he doesn't like the idea of there being unknowable forces in fantasy settings.

Considering the rewards have been cosmetic, it's not a big loss for many players until now. Another companion (that I would have to grind influence for) when I already have about 2 dozen? Why bother? Actually the game really isn't playable even if you are a subscriber. Grind for hours to have a few chances at a gear upgrade? Not feasible for a lot of players, especially since the game tried and discarded this system 5 years ago. I still don't see why the outlander and friends think Valk is finished. He already demonstrated that he could 'hide' in the outlander's mind without anyone being aware of it. For all anyone knows he's still there regaining his power until the stresses of sitting on the throne make the outlander more vulnerable to control. Of course, my Inquisitor would wonder why none of the OTHER ghosts in his head ever noticed Valk, but I don't expect even the slightest acknowledgement of previous stories any longer.

Sorry it's all bound. There's some trinkets in the cartel shop you can buy to offset EA losing his sub money though.

So more people can wait until the final chapter and then subscribe to get it all? I guess that could help boost numbers for one particular month if they need to impress their investors.

The best part is that by announcing the method, the player at level 100 ensured that he/she would stay far ahead of the pack, as it will now take everyone else even longer. Not a bad plan if they wanted to stay ahead and knew they wouldn't have that much time to grind again for a while.

Really? I recall plenty of decisions where the 'dark side' option was mindlessly 'evil' and the 'light side' was cloyingly 'good'. In fact, doesn't the old hag Kreia berate the player no matter which decision they make? It's like Avellone was trolling his own writing.