The only part that seems off though is having Theron act as a go between. There are two reasons for this 1. If the characters are going to be in the instance are area anyway then it seems like an extra step for no reason. Assuming that the reasoning behind this is because we don't want players walking into an area and seeing a comp they killed during the playthrough we can solve that by putting the quests either in an instanced area or just modifying the "visible" flag in the system to not show that companion if they were killed or not recruited yet. 2. On a more basic note it would be really odd for him to say something like "These operatives want to talk with you" and then have him on that list. for some reason it just messes with the flow to me.

once you finish the star fortresses and do the Xalek mission you will have companions that can use sabers and dual sabers. equip them on those companions and it will unlock in collections.

It's true there may be some limitations to the system. I've never worked with the hero engine so I'm not knowledgeable about all its shortcomings. And while your suggestion to have one character direct you to all the missions in some form would bypass some of the possible issues, it guts much of the reason behind the suggestion. Having the characters themselves appear on the base gives a sense of movement and immersion that is needed for something like this. If you find Gault at the Sabacc table one day, and the next day you see Andronokis or Risha ( when you get them) and the day after that it's empty then the game feels more alive. The goal is to make it seem like the companions are more than just a summonable combat pet but more like allies that have lives and agendas. Seeing them involved in the world is a key part of that. Oddly the best way to think about it is if you considered the your companions and yourself as almost a self contained guild. People would be bored really quickly if they were in a guild and the same 20 other people were always on but they never came to ask for your help or held a conversation. This is a degree of social interaction with a player, it just happens to be that this particular is artfully programmed to do things.

It was hinted in the livestream that you were trying to find ways to make the companions more relevant an not just a jumble of people that can come to your aid every now and then. I was thinking that this might be at least a temporary solution to the issue. If you have a random few companions that pop into the base (be it Odessen or wherever we go after this season) and offer a daily mission tied to what they are about. i.e.: Bowdarr asks you to stop a slaving organization, Lokin wants genetic samples from some creature. Gault has a new get rich scheme, etc. The companions that pop up would be random and you would need to have them with you to accomplish the objectives. Instead of exp. you award some companion influence and a small amount of credits. Characters that are romanced could ask for something different than they normally would. Maybe just taking them to a location for a picnic on Alderaan or the cafe on Manaan (date night). It's not a permanent solution but it may give some depth to the characters while making them feel a bit more alive and part of the story.

Assuming the choices are being tracked the entire time that the event is running can we have an indicator on the website as to what side is winning. Even if its something small like blue or red highlights on the SWTOR logo. I think if people know what is coming there may be more of a push by players to make sure their side wins.

There is a difference between Aric and the others though. Aric is in many respects a pragmatist. While he may not agree with or like the people he deals with, he will go with the flow as long as it gets him to an objective. To point is the fact that he hates the direction the Republic is heading right now but will still be part of it as long as they keep his unit outfitted. He joined with the alliance because they offered him a better deal (a way to go up against arcann and supplies to do it.) His hatred for the empire exists for little reason other than they were seen as the enemy. It's not a personal reason. Nadia, Kira and Iresso all have a personal conflict with the Empire. That personal experience would make them very hard to turn to a neutral stance. Working directly with Republic characters would be fine for them, teaming up with the empire would go against already established character background. In the end though I think the decision to have a brief split in the story would be for a more technical reason. It would be easier and cheaper to instance a small area on the faction specific planets than to instance the planet as a whole and since there would be serious issues sending players of the opposing faction to the home planets of the other team it just makes more sense to split the story for a few chapters then merge them back together.

I've gotten to the 5th round on my healer but definitely find it difficult to micro-manage my tank comp. I think I will do better on my shadow dps.

There is a path off to the side of where you fight the swamp rancor in the instanced area. That will lead to the pond under the tree.

The problem that arises with that is the characters. There isn't really a feasible way to get characters like Kira, Nadia, and Iresso who have extreme disgust for the Empire. (and for good reason with all of them abused as a child for Kira, they killed her parents for Nadia, and almost tortured to death for Iresso) to get them to say "oh let bygones be bygones, sure I'll help the character that represents everything I hate". The Imperial characters have some as well though to a lesser degree. In regards to them moving away from a split story like Makeb, I'm not saying that a whole season would be devoted to this. The more likely scenario would be that it covers 2 or 3 chapters in the early part of the season when part of the story is release as a bulk issue. The chapters would be on the faction specific planets (probably Tython, Coruscant, and Balmorra for Republic and Korriban, Dromand Kass, and Taris for Empire) and would manipulate the larger issues like killing or imprisoning Saresh back into the larger part of the story line. I think the increased cost of development could be argued for since players have been asking for a bit more of an identity with their faction and this is a solution that offers that without altering the flow of the current arc in any drastic way. It also avoids the problems that would come with trying to shoehorn a plot that you are suggesting into place which would mean creating instanced replications of all the faction only planets so that opposing sides could land on them which is a whole new level of problems.

I don't think the alliance will lose any ground though. Even after Arcann is removed, I think there will still be some major threats out there. I can already think of at least one that comes to mind since chapter 12. But with a lull in the battles it would make sense that the alliance would shift gears and look to solve the issues inside their two most powerful backers (they still get other support from smugglers and if things go well in chapter 14 it looks like the mandalorians will be backing them as well). Regardless of if we take the throne or not ( I don't think it would be a beat Arcann and win sort of deal) A jedi setting foot on Dromand Kass or a Sith on Corsucant would be a major breach of protocol and wouldn't make sense in the story. The main goal of a split in story would be to show that the players are still a major force inside their faction. Solving those issues would set both sides up for a better war once the big threat is out of the way. Worst case scenario is that after that is done we have a point where we sit down with both factions and negotiate a new treaty putting us back where we were before the game started but I don't think that the full battle to the death will begin for a long while. At least I'm sure the Republic will be looking for a reprieve once we get Saresh's claws out of the puppet senate. And from what I understand of the Empire they would need one as well. Even if there were no factions that went rouge after Acina took control (which all things considered the chances that everyone stayed faithful is thinner than the hair on a rattataki's head) the Empire should be in rebuilding mode. They lost most of the fleet with the betrayal of Malgus. They were solving that issue when the Eternal Empire attacked the first time and we can be sure that if most of the dark council was killed that their fleets probably went down with them. Truth is that the Empire is probably down to only a few battle capable ships at this point. They may have plenty of transports but large cruisers take a while to build.

So a long time ago I put forth the idea that the Eternal fleet was created at some point by the Celestials from the legends lore and that The Gravestone was a Rakatan ship since Rakata tech was powered by the dark side and the infinite empire did at one point go toe-to-toe with the Celestials but went to ground after they lost their connection to the force. This still holds potential. As the Eternal fleet seems like it will still be a threat in future content their may be a way to circumvent the GEMINI systems in place. Enter Vector. Lore says that the Killik hives worked on various projects for the Celestials and in that way it's likely that they are familiar with how those ships operate and what could be done to defeat them. During converstions with Vector it's made apparent that he is at least aware of a Killik hive that is located in the distant reaches of the galaxy, most likely in the unknown regions. If the alliance recruits him later on, he may prove to be the needed bridge to a way of shutting down the Eternal Fleet for good. Of course this is also the reason that regardless of how much he may not like the Republic, it is almost certain that he will be recruited by both factions.

So I just wanted to point out that in a coming season, my guess being the next one but who knows, the story will have to spit back into two directions. They may join back up after everything but there will likely be a place where the Republic players and Theron have to deal with Saresh and what she has made of the government organization while Empire players and Lana go and figure out how to unite what is most likely a fractured Sith Empire. The reason for this is that I don't think the plot armor could handle such vast differences if we didn't let both sides handle their issue separately. For instance even though the majority of the player base would probably like to see Saresh fed to a Rancor the Republic players would most likely want to make an effort to restore the republic while Empire players would want it to burn to ashes. Similarly if the Empire has with the loss of the dark council and the eventual loss of Eternal Empire oversight the usual infighting of the groups would make groups like what the novels saw with the loss of the Emperor where multiple "empires" sprung up from the ashes and all of them said that they were the "True Empire". Imperial players in this situation would want to unite the groups back under one banner while Republic players would let them destroy each other. This means that when we reach a plot point where there is a lull in the fighting we will see our alliance turn and try to shore up their faction defenses by dealing with internal problems. Where Lana and Empire players return to Dromand Kass to deal with the Empire while Theron and Republic characters Go to Corsucant. The other benefit to this is that it allows us to get back to characters that would have no reason to want to deal with the opposing faction players but are major elements to our individual factions. Kira, Nadia, Iresso, and in my opinion Elara wouldn't want to have anything to do with the empire and would say no to any contact with Sith players or Agents. Similarly I doubt Quinn, Dark Jasea or Temple would really have any motivation to deal with the Republic. (Vector normally wouldn't either but he's a special case for another time). Also in the the case of Jaesa it would make dealing with her whole is she dark or light to non-warrior players a lot easier. How does this work when the stories come together again? most likely it will just be that the faction you aren't part of managed to work things out somehow without getting into to much detail. Saresh would be out of power and either dead or on the run and Darth Acina would be either dead or in one of the back seats of a new council that had both sith and major military figures in command.

I don't think Kira and Nadia will be teamed up. Kira was always more of the act first and debate the consequences later kind of girl while Nadia was very much in line with the consular way of questioning everything and go in with a more informed decision (at least if you did all of her conversations). Additionally it seemed like they were preparing Nadia to take on the role of oversight for the rift alliance which would likely play it's own big role in a later season. Kira is probably running some offshoot faction of Jedi that don't fully adhere to the old Jedi code and channel a bit of their emotion into combat. (possibly a precursor to the type of Jedi that Mace Windu is.) I definitely think they will both have a role to play in the chapters that deal with us restoring the republic to it's place in the galaxy. Maybe with Nadia trying to find a way to deal with Saresh through diplomatic channels and Kira's story dealing with where the Jedi fit into the post eternal empire version of the republic.

I've been slowly working to build the Yavin stronghold out as a Mandalorian Enclave. Snipers on the roof with the Big statues of Mandalore work well for the top of the main hall. Cages and training areas in the side room and open space past the bridge. The two buildings in the back work well to have one as a cantina and the other as my hunters personal quarters since he's top dog. The rest of the npcs get a shared bunk room when not on hunts. Finally the space behind the waterfall acts as a hidden base ( a small one but one none the less) for the alliance against the eternal empire. Though i do have statues of both satele and marr just in front of the waterfall so it's not super hard to tell the base is there when on the ground.

humans and a number of other current playable species were transplanted to many worlds during the reign of the rakata and the infinite empire. Sine the lore doesn't go into much detail about that time period it's hard to determine where humans or a number of other species originated from.

Part of my issue was with the suggestion of major group content so frequently. My main concern however was with the excessive patch suggestions. That is what makes it clear that Max doesn't have an idea of what goes on. There will always be bugs in large games. They have to many lines of code that have to interact to not have some spots where something will go wrong. Truthfully I think that considering the engine they are working with on this game we are lucky that we don't see more. To say let's do patches every week to fix everything show clear lack of thought on what it takes to make and sustain a game of this or any size.

Your idea of what the cadence for content should be would work........if you were harder on the devs then EA already is. The amount of coding and content design while constantly working on bugs in the system would burn out the staff pretty quickly. The reason only a few bugs are patched out at a time with the story content is because there is a lot of internal testing that has to be done to make sure things don't become even worse. your method means that the 60-80 hour work week that most of the team has to deal with once a month during the crunch of a patch week becomes a continuous thing. The reason the current chapter content can be pushed out as fast as it is now is because it's only expanding a bit on areas that are already in game, with mechanics that are already in game and voice work that was most likely recorded during the initial launch. What you are asking them to do with a new op or pvp setting every other month is design new mechanics in a new area with at least mostly new assets while recording new dialog while still making sure that the story team has all that they need to continue doing their work. In short, you have no idea the amount of effort that goes into making a quality game.

To be fair, this just makes it seem like you don't want anything else added to the game. There will always be people looking to get the most they can out of what they are selling. That's kind of the nature of selling things. I have yet to see a guild or player that has decided to use an mmo auction house to make a non-profit organization for in-game items. If I ever see an active "greatswords for gamers" drive that is working I'll let you know.

Here is the reason this won't work. In order for the deluxe edition or expansions to be on steam they have to sell the standard game edition as well. Each version has to have it's own page and a negotiated price for the sales page. Since the original game is now free to play and can be downloaded through Origin and the link on this website the cost/benefit isn't in favor for EA. Additionally a portion of the sales for the expansion would then go to Valve instead of all of the revenue going back into EA. From a consumer viewpoint I would love to see most of the games on Origin promoted on Steam but looking at the long view that both the devs and the corporate section of the company (admittedly more the corporate side in this case) it would be detrimental overall.

Problem with that is the GTN for both sales and buying use the mail system. Also gifts from Bioware such as the monthly sub rewards and cantina event items use the system as well. Since you can't have any of those on your friends, guild or other lists you run into an issue.

Rogue one follows events up to the stealing of the death star plans and maybe as far as the attack on the death star from episode 4. Dark Forces with the exception of the first mission took place after the rebels had left Yavin. The cut scene between mission one and two took place on a correllian cruiser. If there is any connection between the two stories it's a thin one at best. The characters from the majority of the books and movies will not likely play a part in the Disney version of the Universe. That being said I honestly wish Disney had gone the way of Marvel with Star Wars instead of just dropping the EU altogether. It would have been much more beneficial from both a PR and monetary point of view to continue EU through the books and comics and some games while having the cinematic universe as it's own timeline.

Just because a character isn't force sensitive doesn't mean they aren't tied into it strongly enough that it won't have any effect. Best example is from the films and books. Han Solo is not force sensitive but it was theorized by a number of people including a few of his children that he was so tied into it that the force would change things just enough so that he seemed incredibly lucky. I think this is what Marr was getting at when characters were in the trials in chapter 12. The force has a will and it acts through everyone including the player. In this regard the player may be such a strong conduit for the will of the force that they become connected to it similar to how jedi and sith are but they lack the training and skill to manipulate the current. Also in regards to why a SI wouldn't be able to take the ghost of Marr. From what I remember of that section of the story the Inquisitor could only take the ghost if that ghost was either willing or the inquisitor could surpass the will of that particular ghost. Marr may have backed down from some fights but only ones that had no impact on the empire. His force ghost is sustained by his desire to protect the Empire which from what I've seen is a wall of will that not even a full dark side SI's desire for power can surmount. That means the only way they could take Marr is if he came willingly; so a snowballs chance on Mustaffar

The empire is commanded by humans and pure blood sith. Canonically there are not any purebloods that are not part of the empire (creating one as a player doesn't count since you were not able to originally). So this empire was formed because of these two species originally. From what I'm understanding the speciest policy was an evolution of extreme patriotism or nationalism. Something along the lines of our two species built this city (of rock and roll) and everyone else is beneath us. This also partly explains why the citizens of Dromand Kass (All human from what we've seen so far) are considered elite and noble while humans from other planets are considered as canon fodder or slaves. The empire doesn't even treat the nobles of house Thul on Alderaan very well.

I asked about something similar to this about 4 or 5 years back at one of the Cantinas in San Francisco. Will we see weapon tuning in the future that do something special when the player scores a critical hit or some other proc. perhaps a large flash of lightning or temporary change to the color crystal. It would be interesting to see something like a color crystal swap since that would give us a close approximation of a dual phase saber which were popular during this time period according to the legends lore.

Since the new chapter gives players a weapon with a buff when equipped I'm wondering if a change will be made where the player will be able to equip a weapon in the costume tabs. It would have to be one where the skin has to match the equipped weapon of course (can't have jedi running around with sniper rifles) but it only makes sense to do so. I think it can be said that most players have a theme for each of their characters and forcing a certain look, even if only one piece of gear, onto a player to give them an advantage seems like a less than inspired design choice. Especially with the multitude of weapons in collections and the release of the HK inspired weapons that came along with the chapter release. My smuggler for instance has had a great deal of effort and expense put into making a near perfect Han Solo outfit and the Kingpin blaster which is closest to a DL-44 as this game has is a part of that design. I feel like this buff attached to the new weapon seems like a penalty for sticking with a particular visual aesthetic.