True, the speed of their updates is not bad. I know some will try and find old quotes about monthly updates, but I think that should have been taken with a grain of salt at the time, it is just unreasonable to expect large content updates every month in a MMO (especially one which has added layers of work upon itself with cutscnees and VO to even the smallest additions). That being said, I am not thrilled with the updates. I think they are updating the wrong things. More of the same is not what I believe this game needs, it needs tweaks to existing systems to make what we already have more fun. There is plenty of content already to keep people occupied if the game was not so much of a drag to actually play. As to the OP, I must unfortunately say that I do not "love" TOR. I love Star Wars, and will give almost any SW product at least a shot, but TOR is a "meh" on it's best days. The slow and clunky combat and controls, the excess of loading screens, the massive credit costs for even the most minor of ingame customization, the static and unchanging game worlds, the linear (often hallway layout) of planets, the small scale PvP, the singleplayer-only space content, all this is quickly driving me away. These are the sorts of issues I wish were being addressed in patches, not new flashpoints where we just get new backdrops and VO in which to experience all these issues over again. They could add a new flashpoint every week, or every few days, it would make no difference. So long as the sorts of issues I mentioned above I cannot see the game being fun to play. At this point I really have my fingers crossed for some major system redesigns in the first xpack because I am not seeing the kind of fixes to core systems in these patches I was hoping to see. I love Star Wars, I want to love (or at least like) TOR, but the game is not making it easy.

I do not think sandbox elements like player housing or any kind of littering of the terrain with doodads has much place in a themepark, handcrafted world. That being said, scifi (like Star Wars) has the endless possibilities of space, and could easily work in player run/maintained/owned structures via space stations, ships, etc. If any MMO were to try and incorporate both game types, a scifi MMO would be the one to stand the best chance. That being said, TOR is so ultra restrictive (even for a themepark MMO) that I really doubt we will see any such things here. I would much rather see them work on loosening the reigns on the players a little and make the ground game more open-world and not so linear/instanced first before attempting anything else.

I am not sure I would directly say it hurt subs and lowered retention, however I am certain it did lead to a weak first impression of the game. So in that regard it was a big wasted opportunity to really wow new players and get them invested in the game. I would not have played a Trandoshan, Rodian, Togruta, or Nautolan, but I would have liked to see them at character creation. And I certainly would have liked to play alongside other players who were using some of these species. It would have really made the game feel like Star Wars (all the recolored humans kind of feels more like Star Trek right now than anything else. And for the record, I don't buy into the "restricted because players cannot relate to them" nor the "we do not want players to be the weirdest thing in the room" mentality. Part of the greatness about Star Wars is how little species matters.

I think most of my reasons have been already covered, but it frequently boils down to the fact that no matter what I am doing I find myself thinking offhand of a dozen ways whatever activity I am doing was stunted just so another tiny bit of story or "cinematic experience" could be added. Sometimes it is the large things. Absolulte linear planet order, linear zone progression (single hallways leading through most of Coruscant are one of the most disappointing implementations of a cool location ever), linear companion unlocks, red unpassable barriers everywhere sectioning off tons of ingame areas (7/8ths of which our character never sees and 1/8th of which they only see once and then are barred from entering ever again), several planets instanced entirely different for each faction to depict different timeframes in the war, etc, all to lay the story out in front of the player in the exact same order every time. Sometimes it is the freedoms held back from us. Massive restrictions on species at class creation for lore/story purposes (just to have them later be unlocked by legacy, too bad new players), few iconic Star Wars aliens because it would be supposedly too hard to relate to them in cutscenes, lack of customizable ships because of cutscene animation pathing (don't see how that interferes with diffferent ship color schemes at the very least), lack of dynamic weather or day/night cycles to keep moods the same during certain cutscenes on planets, lack of companion role choice (you better pick a class whose healer does not annoy you), etc. Sometimes it is just purely bizzare stuff like chosing a single player space implementation because it looked the most cinematic and movie-like, or removing auto attack because making every ability a short combo allowed "choreographed" combat animations (regardless of how it removes any fluidity from the actual combat gameplay itself), or the insane number of load screens (especially aboard orbital stations) just so one or two of the classes can have the occasional cutscene in the airlock outside their ship, or choosing virtually exact mirror images as the main city/hubs of each faction (I guess no story happens there so it is not as important to flesh these out and make them interesting and SW-esque locales, despite the fact they are the major meeting and hang out locations in the game). I like story, but it is not the main reason I play a MMO. It is something that makes the first few weeks/months a different MMO experience, but not something that keeps me longterm. Despite all the claims, I was never under the impression that story alone would be able to sustain the game, it is just too finite. I honestly cannot see how anyone expected story to carry the game alone. What really drives me nuts is how so many of the easily repeatable, longevity-promoting, fan pleasing, customizeable, modern MMO standard/expected aspects of the game seem to have been de-prioritized just to cram another ounce of story or VO into the game. In short, I would gladly have sacrificed a little of the abundant story/cinematicness to have some of these MMO-friently things added. Day/night/weather cycles even if it meant that the planetary cutscenes illogically and abruptly shifted to a different time of day? Definitely. More iconic SW species at character creation even if it meant I was on occasion the strangest creature in the room? In a heartbeat. Free flight space even if it meant I am sometimes just sitting there bumping nose-first into an asteroid? Absolutely. The lack of MMO-friendliness in most aspects of the game's design are what makes me fear for the game most. And it does not seem to be getting any better (legacy as nothng more than a giant credit sink is heartbreaking when it could have been such an interesting and contextual account wide achievement / inventory / heirloom / cosmetic reward system). Perhaps the game truly does just target those MMO players who are dying for story above all else, but the pure ease and speed of levelling makes me think they are trying to grab as large an audience as possible. So until more attention is paid to environmental freedom, personal customization, and overall active fun gameplay (not just fun in watching cutscenes unfold) I will unsub and just check back periodically with fingers crossed hoping for some large changes in design direction of new content. At this point most of my hopes are banking on the first expansion, as I do not expect any major changes until then. And if all it does is provide more of the same, story over substance, well... there are other games on the horizon, and my massive SW-fan-ness will only keep me around for so long. If the game had incredibly fun gameplay (combat), perhaps all this could be overlooked. I tolerate a heck of a lot of problems from a game if it is actively fun to play. Or if there was a ton of social, customizable, repeatable, explorable, virtual world like aspects to the game, then the combat can be mediocre. It would still be fun to "live" in the world. But unfortunately the game currently has neither, and does not seem to be moving in a direction to rectify either (more linear restrictive content is absolutely not what will fix the game for me).

Eventually I would like to play a Miraluka Sith of some kind. Jerec was the first I remember ever seeing, and will always be one of my favorites. In fact I was quite upset that the Miraluka were so class restricted to begin with. All the talk about how species were being massively class restricted really rubbed me the wrong way, part of the beauty of Star Wars was all kinds of weird aliens doing virtually anything they wanted. But for as big a beef I have with all the initial species restrictions, I have just as large a beef with the unlocks. Yes, as I just said anyone should be able to be anything, but a Sith Pureblood on the Republic? Really? That just flies in the face of the war, they are the epitome of evil in this game and should be now and forever Sith only. So yeah, the entire system is messed up in my eyes. Should have let any class be any species right from the start, no unlocks, with only two restrictions: Sith always empire only and one suitable opposite species always republic. Would have to be something pretty cool and somewhat unique (not just a human reskin). Maybe Mon Cal or Cathar, both could have easily been tweaked to have massive anit-imperial sentiment at the start of the game. Ah well, what could have been.

Seeing as how none of the armor looks the same on each faction to begin with (the same piece of armor looks different on a JK versus a SW for example), I am not sure why any class restriction on armors even exist. I vote the simpler method and just remove all class restrictions. Maybe toss a faction restriction on some of the old items to keep the existing items away from the other side (no more or less restrictive than it already is). But really, if the SW and BH can already share 2/3 of their armor then why not all of it?

While it is never pleasant to hear about core developers leaving a project, I am remaining hopeful with all the changes taking place. Perhaps whatever new blood is brought in will focus a little harder on shoring up the traditional 3 pillars of MMO-ness in the game instead of banking quite so heavily on story to carry it. Of course there is no indication that this will be the case, but I am trying my best to look on the bright side as I really do not want to bail on yet another SW MMO (if TOR goes the way of SWG I will probably be old and grey before a 3rd SW MMO is even attempted again).

It would make for a highly contextual aggro radius reducer for JC and SI for use against NPCs.

While I understand the desire to give companions some sense of uniqueness by their role (melee tank, ranged tank, melee dps, ranged dps, healer), far too often they boil down to simply needing to use them by role with no regard for how much we like their looks, commentary, or personality. To that end it would be greatly appreciated if the entire companion system was expanded upon over time to eventually give all companions the ability to either properly dps or heal/tank. That is, no pure dps companions, and no pure heals/tank companions. And no, I do not mean the single stance switch, I mean some kind of functional change (for instance going to a companion trainer somewhere or perhaps just done by talking to them on our ship) and flipping their main roles and entire action bars between either tank/heals and straight dps alternatives. Even better would be entirely swappable companion skills so we could customize which 10 skills to bring along, tailoring each to the role we wanted. It would not be a stretch for any of the current tanking or healing companions to have a pure dps "spec" we could switch them to. So really it just boils down to how plausible from a theme point of view the current dps companions would be filling a new function (either tanking or healing). So lets look at them (the dps companions): Jedi Knight: Kira - As a Consular-esque force user I could see her having an alternate spec to use force based healing abilities. Rusk - As a Trooper his alternate spec could be a ranged tank akin to Corso. Jedi Consular: Zenith - Being slightly smuggler/agent like I could see him getting a heal spec. Nadia - Since Zenith would be getting heals she should be getting alternate tanking abilities. Maybe a ranged force using tank (Xalek-like). Really it is not a stretch to see any force themed companion in any role. Trooper: Yuun - Since Trooper already has a melee weapon Trooper tank (Vik) Yuun would be a better healer (also he fits with gadgets and probe like heals). Jorgan - Ends up a ranged tank alternate by process of elimination (but at least he also would be slightly different than the current droid ranged tank the Trooper has). Smuggler: Akaavi - BH, heavy armor, stick a melee tank alternate spec on her. Risha - Same as Zenith above, smuggler-like enough to be a healer alternate spec. Sith Warrior: Vette - Same as Risha and Zenith, smuggler-like enough to be a healer alternate spec. Jaesa - Same as Nadia, should be similar to Xalek as a consular/inquisitor melee tank. Sith Inquisitor: Andronikos - Smuggler, healer alternate. Ashara - Actually the only tricky alternate to figure out among all the companions. Dual wielding medium armor as a melee tank? Possible I suppose (would not be ranged since she is melee and Xalek is already a force using ranged tank for the SI). Bounty Hunter: Gault - Smuggler/agent-like, healer alternate Torian - BH-like, melee tank alternate (like Akaavi). Imperial Agent: Vector - Melee tank (like Vik) Temple - Agent-like healer. A setup like this would give all classes another tank to pick from and another healer to pick from (3 tanks and 2 healers), really helping to reduce companion restriction based on our playstyle. If you wanted to really show off you could go one step further and give each class one (or more) companion that could fulfill any of the 3 roles when "specced" for it. Again, perfectly reaosnable companions that could fit any role: JK - Kira, Rusk, or T7-01 JC - Nadia or Iresso Trooper - M1-4X (maybe Jorgan if you were desperate for a second) Smuggler - Akaavi or Corso SW - Jaesa or Pierce SI - Ashara or Xalek BH - Torian or Blizz IA - Kaliyo or Scorpio (maybe Vector if desperate for a third) I would love to see a future patch focused around improving companion functioanlity and use, and a large part of that could be allowing us a greater degree alternatives regarding their roles. Toss in some extra companion character customization options (like a second companion customization kit slot so we could have one slot for hairstyle alone and one for skin color/markings/scars/etc) and a new level of life would quickly be added to the entire companion system. PS - And if you want to get really crazy how about legacy unlocks that open up new weapon options for our companions. I would love to see any of the force using companions able to equip single/double/dual bladed lightsabers, or see Jorgan finally get to use a sniper rifle after listening to him constantly talk about being a former sniper, or see Blizz with a tiny little Trooper autocannon, etc. All the more reason to give us extra skills for our companions and only let us choose 10 to take into combat on their bar (some could be weapon restricted).

Personally, I think it was/would have been good to have just one single faction-only species per faction which would never be avaiable to the other (even after unlocks) to keep something unqiue between the two. And those two should have been Cathar and Sith from the start (for Republic and Empire respectively). All the others work fine as unlocks, Miraluka, Mirialans, Rattataki, Chiss, etc. But It really bugs me seeing Sith running around the Republic fleet freely, and Cathar would have served as a suitably cool/unique race to offset them (better than any human recolor option currently ingame). That being said, it is too late now, legacy has let any racial identity per faction go to pieces. But to keep with the OP's format: 1) Sure, may as well include Cathar. 2) Because if they can somehow justify to themselves allowing Republic players to be Sith then there is no reason any species should ever be restricted from here on out. Again, I think they are wasted as a legacy-wide unlock and would have been better spent as the Republic's unique race, but it's too late now. 3) Flat out need to see other iconic SW species sooner rather than later. Togruta would be next on the short list, would not require any story or dialogue adjustments. I also think Mon Cal and Kel Dor should be in the pipelines with the possible caveat of [flirt] options unavailable. I know many/most players would not mind the loss of a few small bits of one time dialogue for the chance to play such iconic species for the longterm. Add Rodian and Trandoshan to the list as even further down the lone optios once the game better established them as being able to speak basic (as recent lore has shown). 4) I do think Cathar are extremely Republic aligned, and should have stayed there as a unique choice, but yet again if Sith are on both sides then there is no reason to hold anything back at this point. 5) Cathar are very human-like, but would at least be a huge step forward in diversity over what we have now. I want to see even less human options later, Cathat are a good first step. I expected Togruta before Cathar to be honest.

A few more easy animation/effect suggestions: When using the Autocannon the Trooper's default attack "Hammer Shot" seems to be using the wrong bullet effect. Every bullet from every shot has the contrail-like effect attached to it. And conversely, "Full Auto" fires a series of contrail-less bullets. This is backwards from every gun using class in the game, where the regular shots are the basic graphics while special ability shots have the fancy trails behind them. Not a tremendous deal at first, but considering how much we use hammer shot and how often we are on the move while firing it, our bullets are arcing all over the place leaving weaving contrails everywhere. The effect should be reserved for abilities (like Full Auto) which require us to be standing still, so the trails are not as goofy and twisting. it would also solve the problem of Full Auto currently lookig less impressive than our default attack Hammer Shot. Trooper's "Blitz" is currently identical to "Stockstrike" (at least with an Autocannon, didn't try it with a rifle). Couldn't a small electrical zap or spark be given to the hit on Blitz to set it a little bit apart? It is called "Blitz" after all. Trooper Commando's "Hail of Bolts" has a really buggy look to it, the bullets slow down and hover in midair for a second at their maximum range before disappearing. It gives the ability a very unfinished look, the bullets should be just disappearing or fading away at max range like all other back-and-forth spray of bullets abilities in the game. And not Trooper related but something that has always bugged me, the Jedi Knight's class buff "Force Might" makes no sense from a visual cohesion standpoint. Literally every single ability they have is themed blue, yet their buff is solid green? It seemed like the wrong hue from the start, I always assumed it would be fixed, but this late I am starting to wonder. Worth bringing up again just because of how simple it would be to change.

Why not let all the lower level speeders scale with our current riding skill? It is a real shame that low level speeders are never touched again once we get a new riding skill. I suppose the idea of adding a mod slot to speeders for an engine would work (so we can toss in an upgrade to get them all to move at the same speed by the end of the game), but why go through the hassle? Just let us use our old ones, or worst case scenario, let us take the to the speeder vendor and (for a small fee) have them "upgrade" it to the next rank speed.

I think all it would take is a single open world capturable objective on each planet. Some kind of communication tower or relay station, something contextual and worth fighting over in the larger war effort that gave the current occupying faction a small planet wide buff. -If a faction controls the objective on one planet, they get a planet wide "rank 1" buff there. -If a faction controls the objectives on all the planets in a region of space (Outer Rim, Hutt Space, etc) then they get a "rank 2" buff across all those planets. -If a faction controls the objectives on all the planets in the galaxy then they get a "rank 3" galaxy-wide buff for everyone. Toss in a few added story incentives, like holoprojectors on the fleets (and our ships) keeping track of which planets are owned by whom, and public service announcements when a region or galaxy changes hands. Sith Lords berating the populace for showing no backbone, or Republic officials urging people to take up arms in defense of their planets. So much that could be done here.

I have also been very underwhelmed with the Legacy aspect of the game. It seemed like such an easy thing to get right.: - Make it account wide - Track cumulative progress (faction stories finished, class stories finished, achievements/points) - Vanity reward unlocks (species combos, emotes, noncombat pets, ship paint, barber shop, last names per character, etc) - Alt-friendly purchaseable unlocks (heirloom items, xp boosts, reduced speeder reqs, etc) at reasonable prices - BONUS: Grind reducing elements. Shared credit stash per server, some way to tie banks together between chars per server (even if it was just a single shared tab at the end), account wide unlocking once datacrons are found, account wide sharing of planetary commendations, pretty much anytihng that players would dread doing again and again. Aside from the last point, none of that seemed in any way unreasonable. Nothing earth shattering that would have massively eaten into development. What was dismaying from the start was how contradictory (or flat out useless) everything being added to the Legacy has been. Cool, we get to pick a last name. Bummer, it is applied to ALL our characters on that server. Well I guess I can make my Republic characters on one server and my Imps on another. Too bad any species I unlock by hitting 50 won't be available to the other faction on the other server. And even worse that some upcoming features (like HK) require you to have both sides on he same server. But at least people who like to just play for the story and then start over can pick up all those perks for levelling new alts through so much of the same content each time, provided they spent plenty of time at endgame first grinding out the credits. And the tree and linking our portraits and family ties is perhaps the silliest part of it all, I cannot see anything good coming out if it in the future. So my earlier list stands, that is all I wanted out of the system. But with the direction it is heading it is feeling far more like just a massive credit sink than the cohesive achievement/vanity/heirloom system I was hoping for. Heck, since getting my characters transferred to one of the destination servers a few weeks ago I have not even been able to find a decent, unclaimed legacy name yet. And I have not missed any of the legacy features one bit.

I do not think solo would be all that useful (we really don't do anything alone we always have a companion with us), but more 2 man flashpoints would be greatly appreciated. Esseles/BT was great fun 2 man and being only 2 man it meant we stood a decent chance of running it with our companion alone before we outlevelled it too badly.

I would argue that while more content in all of those areas is certainly nice, adding more of the same is not what the game needs most right now. It needs tweaking in many existing areas and functions to simply be more fun. Tighter, more responsive combat. More account-wide (or at the very least legacy-wide) sharing of incredibly grindy aspects of the game. Less prohibitive costs associated with appearance features (like mod switching to look how we want), and more appearance customization features period. Reduction of load screens anywhere they can, less instancing. More life added to the existing worlds/content, more reason to love our faction and hat the enemy. More Star-Warsiness all around from playable species to less fantasy-based armor styles.

I was very pleased to see the recent switch to the Bounty Hunter's Tracer Missile and Fusion Missile animations (to get the less obtrusive wrist mounted missile firing into more common rotations and put the more impactful backpack mounted missile firing a less common occurance), and as I now play the Trooper I see many easy ways they could be similarly improved. 1. The Vanguard's Explosive Surge feels like it uses the wrong animation. The Trooper stops their attack, hits a few buttons on their wrist, and the explosion comes out of nowhere. It feels like this should use the same character animation (not explosion) as the Commando's Concussive Charge, where the commando pulls out a grenade in their left hand and hits a button on it at point blank range, detonating it instantly. This character animation, coupled with the original firey explosion of Explosive Surge, would make the effect feel far closer to what the Trooper at the end of the "Hope" trailer does right in Malgus' face, and would help our characters feel that much more heroic. The current wrist-button-pushing feels like a leftover Bounty Hunter ability. 2. High Impact Bolt does not feel particularly impactful. I recognize the sound effect is the classic star wars "splat" shot, but for such a high DPS staple ability it sounds and looks weak. It is sad that every time I am working alongside a Gunslinger I am jealous of how impressive all of their shots sound compared to my little spllat-like Impact Bolt. Concussive Round has a far more impressive and Impactful sound effect, I would love to hear high Impact Bolt get treatment (I could even see Concussive Round getting a more sonic sound effect similar to the Stormtrooper's "Set to stun" sound they use on Leia at the beginning of Episode IV). 3. Elara's Carbonized Stream seems out of place. All healer companions have a CC/stun ability, but the Trooper's healer companion (Elara) seems like she got the wrong one. In fact, the Trooper and BH companions feel like they got theirs reversed. Elara uses the "Carbonized Stream" ability, where she sprays out carbonite to temporarily freeze the enemy. On the other side, the Bounty Hunter's corresponing healer (Mako) has a CC ability "Electro-Stasis" where she uses a taser-like beam to temporarily stun foes. So many of the Trooper's elemental effects are electrical in nature, and so much of the BH lore is based around carbonite, I cannot help but feel like these abilities were acidentally switched at some point. Shouldn't the BH's companion use the carbonite based ability, and shouldn't the Trooper's use the taser-like one? 4. The Commando's Demolition Round is lackluster. I know that the ability needs to have the same flight time as the BH equivalent (Heatseeker Missiles), but the weird slow moving swirly projectile of Demolition Round feels really out of place and shoehorned in. Not sure what would fit better, perhaps making it into more of an arcing mortar to account for the fly-time, but as it stands it looks silly to see the trooper shooting something out of their giant autocannon that looks identical to what the Smugglers are constantly throwing at their foes by hand. For a top-talent-tree Trooper ability I expected something with more punch. What really drives me nuts is seeing the JK's Trooper-based companion Rusk running around shooting his Overdrive Beam and wishing that my actual Trooper abilities were half that cool looking.

This may sound like an odd suggestion, but it could be a novel feature to add a graphics option to disable the large glowing effects from force abilities (lightning and thrown projectiles aside) to let players who want less magic and fantasy and more subtle force usage to enjoy a more movie-like feel to the game. Or if not disable it completely, maybe a slider to adjust the transparency of such force abilities so we just get a hint of them and they do not fill the screen. It may not be the most practical thing, and could put users at a slight disadvantage during highly competitive play where you want to see the source of those Force Waves or Force Screams. But it would certainly help cut back on some of the crazy particle and graphics effects when there are tons of people onscreen in a rather contextual manner. I would much rather tone down the force effects than the explosions and blaster bolts.

Space missions do not prevent the queue from popping (I have had it pop while in mid space mission). Same for if you are inside instanced story areas, still can pop, although if the queue pops there it does seem to interfere with the auto-teleport feature. There are some activities which warn tell you to exit the queue first (you cannot be invited to a group while in queue for example so I doubt you can queue while already in a group), but none that I know of that will interfere with the initial matchmaking. Just chalk the long waits up to people too used to playing alone not using the queue or most everyone already being at endgame.

I am fairly sure what happened was the storage locker was moved from the cargo hold to the crew quarters and they just deleted the beds there. Why, I am not sure, maybe they thought it was more convenient? Either way it is something we complained about back in beta too to no avail. But yeah, combined with how many locked doors are littered around the Defender and little things like this add up to make it feel incomplete compared to some of the other ships.

After how content light 1.3 was there will probably be some new content in 1.4 to prevent forums uproar. I expect some of the content shown at E3 to be 1.4 content. That being said, I have some very reasonable hopes for other "easy" features they could include: - Companion gear color matching - Hidable companion head slots - ilvl requirements incorporated into LFG filtering - Further reduced modding costs - Remappable keybinds for space combat - Click to enter names on the GTN - Option to hide known recipies on the GTN (only show learnable recipies) - A character re-customization "barber shop" for changing hair style, color, facial hair, tattoos, scars, etc. It would be a pleasant surprise to see lots of small QOL style features like these added.

I have little/no interest in extra character slots at this time. Several of the classes hold no interest for me for a variety of reaons (do not care for the mechanics, aesthetics or sound of their abilities and VO, or their companions/ships/story do not interest me). If they were to give us greater freedom in some of these areas I might be more inclined to play through all the classes, in which case I could see the desire for more slots being on the distant horizon, but a lot needs to happen beforehand before I start asking for more slots. There are many, many other things I would rather see get top attention and made to happen first.

It does a lot of things decent, the story is above average, the combat is far below average, and many other things show potential. But you are right, it is missing something that draws people in and makes them want to keep playing unless they are hardcore Star Wars fans. My biggest problem right now is that for every good fluff design decision they make they seem to shoot themselves in the foot hard. - Add legacy features, but make it server only instead of account wide. - Add last names, but make them shared across factions. - Use cinematic combat style bursts, but it makes us stand around like a bump on a log doing nothing between attacks. - We are given dialogue choices, but there is little outcome difference aside from light/dark points. - Give us multiple body builds, but skip over an average build and go right from ultra-lean long distance marathon runner to beefy linebacker. - We have fully VO'ed story, but it's 75% the same within each faction every playthrough. - Give us a teleport back to the fleet, but give it an 18 hour cooldown. - Add a central hub for each faction just to make them virtually identical and not particularly memorable or Star-Wars-y. - Give us player ships instead of housing, but not let us customize or decorate them in any way (which is pretty much the sole reason anyone wants housing in the first place). - Make alt-ing more attractive by letting us buy perks to increase levelling speeds and allow us to play as new species combos, just to make all of these prohibitively expensive except for those who spend a lot of time at endgame and do not want to reroll. - Give us companions we are supposed to care about, but make some functional necessities while others virtually useless despite how much we may like/hate their characters. - Give our companions interesting backstories and affection-unlocked story missions, just to have them ask for leave to do them on their own and report back to us with the outcome. - Give us space combat in our MMO, but make it singleplayer. The worst part is story being used as an excuse for many of these (like it getting in the way of our cutscenes when it comes to redecorating ships or even worse being used as an excuse to keep species/profession combos restricted at launch just to open them up with legacy unlocks later on). I want to like the game, but you guys are not giving me much to build my hope upon. I almost have more fear when I hear about a new feature nowadays because I know the other shoe will be dropping shortly thereafter. I half expect to hear something like "dual specs being added, but they take 25000 credits to filip between" any day now. * I will say that the UI customization and LFG features are both big net boons for the game. While not perfect, they are both clearly good features which seem to be heading in the right direction.

Zero. I would not pay anything for more slots. If I run out of slots I will just delete old characters. Levelling up is so fast and easy it is not like there is any big loss, and there is no real difference in the storylines or choices to make me want to have two of the same class for longterm play. But I never play more than one of each class in a MMO anyway so BW should be given some credit, they did get me to play both a Trooper and a BH (which are functionally identical). No other game has done that. Now I would consider buying slots (with real $) of the game was F2P, it would feel like I was supporting the game in some small way, but not so long as they charge a monthly fee.

For reference I was in the beta, preordered the CE, and played the first month the game came out but unsibscribed and quit before those 30 days were up. I recently resubscribed with 1.3, but will most likely be unsubscribing again before my 30 days are up. My priorities are fairly simple in games: 1. Gameplay. Actual controls and combat gameplay. 2. Story/lore/world/setting/etc. How much I enjoy the world around me, the characters and locations. 3. Other players/community/liveliness of the game environment. Gameplay is by far my top priority. It was what made me quit once, and what is making me quit again. Story/lore is what has kept my interest enough to follow the game even when unsibscribed, and the chance to one day enjoy playing in the Star Wars universe is what kept my hopes alive. The community aspect has improved with LFG, at least now I can group up with others without spamming fleet, but outside of flashpoints the worlds still feel dead. LFG is the sole reason I decided to give the game another shot, and I give credit that it is not bad for a first implementation of the system (I just worry it is too late). So down to my list of 5 reasons why I am quitting: 1. Sluggish/boring gameplay (combat). It is hard to nail down exactly what is at fault, it is a combination of unresponsive abilities, false triggering of cooldowns, sluggish movenent and jumping, weak animations and sounds, so many things at fault. I largely blame the reliance on "cinematic combat" (no auto attack), as it still seems abilities end up being dictated by their animations more than their utility or functional use. After 7 months I am not convinced this will ever improve to the point of what I consider acceptable, and is by far the biggest flaw that makes me think this quit may be for good. It is frustrating beyond belief that nearly every game I have played in the past 7 months has had me saying "I wish TOR controlled more like this". 2. Feeling confined in all aspects of the game. Led through the planets in a straight order, zone by zone, often hallway by hallway for every single character in the exact same order every time. The gratuitous load screens don't help either, they make the game feel segmented as heck and it was not until Tatooine that the game started to feel like an MMO at all. The red phase barriers everywhere are a constant reminder that there is more world out there, just not for us to see. I really hope that they look at what other MMOs are doing in this regard and begin granting us access to all areas of the game and just phasing us into our own worlds when story dictates, getting rid of the red/green barriers altogether. 3. Lack of life to the worlds. Vehicles everywhere that are static props. Armies constantly sitting behind barricades shooting at each other to no avail. Mobs that stand around literally waiting to die. No ebb and flow to the worlds, no factions raiding each others' camps or cities, no open world PvP objectives. I was amazingly disappointed not to see some small spot on each planet with a capturable PvP objective that gave the ruling side some small global bonus while on the planet. A floating casino on Nar Shaddaa, a guard complex on Belsavis, a Hutt complex on Quesh, a crashed ship on Hoth, so many cool things that could be fought over and made into open world control points. 4. ^ Related to #3, lack of life to the "cities" (fleets). These are amazingly boring, and fill me with zero factional pride when visiting. First of all we rarely see space stations in Star Wars lore, so to suddenly be spending so much time at one makes it feel like some generic scifi ripoff. Second, we already have such great looking capital ships, why are the "fleets" not actually on board the fleets? I would love to see my ship docking at a Super Star Destroyer, checking out it's halls and hangars. Have a skymall sort of central location for commerce, armory for training, a massive bridge crew and known commander for our forces, etc. Alternatively, I am even jealous visiting Coruscant when I see the Senate building thinking "they could have made a similar building to serve as the central hub here full fo windows showing the Coruscant skyline and it would have had a much cooler and more Star-Wars-y feel than Carrick Station". Same for Kaas city. 5. ^^ Also related back to #3, the lack of a day/night cycle is killing me. The justification of "it would ruin the feel of the story on each planet" really rubs me the wrong way. After playing both factions to the mid 40s I cannot think of a single cutscene that would have been ruined by a day night cycle (and if it was that important why not just keep the proper cycle for your story in the story phase and let the general world sit on a cycle?). But this is just symptomatic of what I see as a larger problem, common features which are being left out or deemed unimportant in favor of an overreliance on story. I also lump the lack of interesting Star Wars species at character creation, lack of ship redecorating, teeth grindingly boring cutscenes (after seeing them 100x) in flashpoints all as things that any reasonable MMO would have addressed if not for story holding them back here. Yes I know, story is what sets TOR apart, but it is very finite in nature and should not trump longevity and diversity in other aspects of the game at all times. The 4th pillar alone cannot support this game. So there are my issues in a nutshell. Gameplay needs massive tightening and more of a focus on fun than movie-ness, restrictions on the player need to be better hidden from the player or the worlds will never feel very massive, there needs to be far more interactivity in the worlds, the locations we are expected to hang out at most need to scream Star Wars at us and make us feel like there is a actual war going on where we care about our faction, and story must stop steamrolling good design decisions that would add far more diversity, life, and longterm interest of the game. I did not even bring up space combat because it would be an entire essay in itself, and in its current state it is barely worth mentioning (but if majorly revamped it could easily be enough to singlehandedly bring me back).