I've finally talked my buddy into trying the game out, but he doesn't want to mess around with all the Free2Play stuff. I told him that he can still download the game for free and then subscribe, but he's interested in snagging a physical copy of the game so he can have the box (dorky, I know). Does anyone know if he'll get the first month of the game free for buying a standard, physical box copy of the game from Best Buy or something, or is he going to have to pay 15 bucks on to of whatever he shells out for it?

Does this also negate the level lock on the mods? Could I stick level 50 mods into a piece of Legacy bound gear and then hand it off to a lower level alt?

Even though I have an active subscription, and am planning on keeping it, I'm considering using a hit off the account wide inventory unlock to potentially save heaps of credits - but I'm unsure as to how it works. Here's my current lineup: Character 1: Six expansions - full inventory. Character 2: Six expansions - full inventory. Character 3: Five expansions - 250,000 to expand. Character 4: Five expansions - 250,000 to expand. Character 5: Four expansions - 100,000 to expand. Character 5: Two expansions - 50,000 to expand. Character 6: One expansion - 20,000 to expand. Character 7: Not yet created. Now if I use the account wide unlock, I'm assuming my lineup will look like this: Character 1: Six expansions - full inventory. Character 2: Six expansions - full inventory. Character 3: Six expansions - full inventory. Character 4: Six expansions - full inventory. Character 5: Five expansions - 250,000 to expand. Character 5: Three expansions - 75,000 to expand. Character 6: Two expansions - 50,000 to expand. Character 7: Not yet created. (I have no idea what would happen.) Is that correct? Everyone gets bumped up one line? If so, it seems like it would be a better deal for me to spend the money and get all of my characters down to the five unlocks phase, thus saving 250,000 credits each (instead of a much smaller savings for characters 5 and 6 as it currently stands). Does anyone know what, if anything, happens to characters created after an account wide unlock is used? Do they start with the lines opened, or miss out because they weren't made?

I picked up the game a few months back and took the slow, story-filled route to 50, and once I got to the top I absolutely fell in love with PvP, which I had been dabbling in on the way up. Because I was content to make a small army of alts (I want to see all the story lines!) and heal the people who weren't trying to shoot me in the face I never got around to checking out hard modes and operations. Some buddies that I usually PvP with recently dragged me along (despite my protests that I absolutely had no idea what I was doing ) when they needed a warm body and I discovered that all the stuff I had been skipping - mostly because I didn't care for it in That Other MMO™ - was fun and a little bit crazy here, at least as a healer. After a few cautious Group Finder pugs I sort of found my groove. All that is the long version that leads to a short question: If I have all the gear I need (or better gear from other sources) from the lower tiers of commendations (Tionese, Columni) is there anything else I can use them for? Are there schematics I can buy somewhere, or a speeder I can drop all my no longer needed comms on? If there's only the gear, I should be able to slap that stuff on a companion, right?

I'm a fairly low key role-player, but I've had it pointed out to me time and again that you never role-play your character's story line, because it would result in every Trooper being in the same elite squad, every Bounty Hunter the big life-changing contest, and every Jedi offing the big bad guy that saves the day for everyone.Given that Troopers who so much as mention Havoc Squad in their stories, artwork, and in-game interactions are treated as outcasts during most role-playing events (at least on the two remaining RP-flagged severs, and in the RP forums) I am completely baffled why you feel that "every choice is permanent" in your interactions with your companions, seeing as every other aspect of the hard-coded story is verboten. Why would a role-player (as specified in your following points) even care what goes down in those conversations, when they have to throw out or heavily modify everything that was said during them to avoid the "My Trooper is married to Jorgen, and everyone elses' Trooper is married to Jorgen, who is clearly in 105,503 places at the same time!" scenario? If you're content to role-play that Jorgen is actually another Cathar - with another story of his own, to avoid the Havoc references - why not role-play that you two never talked about marriage?

I'm a pretty mild role-player, but something I've enjoyed (here and in other games) was coming up with the answer to a single question for each character I make: what is the main thing that motivates this character to act the way he/she does? My combat medic Trooper, for example, joined the military to get out of a dead-end small town/planet lifestyle and is wholly devoted to following orders, because she believes that following those orders that help the greater good is the "right thing to do". Why does she believe following orders is the "right thing to do", even when she might have found them morally questionable in her civilian life? Because she isn't overly gifted in the plotting, planning, and management departments (she excels at being a follower, rather than a leader), but the people handing down those orders have been trained for it (in many cases) their entire adult lives. Only a handful of times in the process of finishing chapters 1-3 three did she go against her orders, resulting in an interesting mix of Light and Dark points, but sitting there and quickly debating the situation with my friend - also a fairly lawful Trooper - were some of the best bursts of RP I've run into so far.

Thank you for the thorough answers! As promised, I was half way through reading them when I realized I managed to leave out the question that started it all in my head: Do threat-reducing abilities, like a Trooper's Diversion ability that lowers threat to all current enemies, do anything in PvP?

I'm not big on PvP, but it helps pass the time when none of my buddies are around, and now that I'm 50 I want to make sure I'm pulling my weight. I've got the basics down: move as a group, defend things instead of chasing people, call incoming baddies, stick with the ball in Hutball and whatnot. However, I have (embarrassingly) failed to find the answers to the following questions, and would appreciate de-noob-ification by anyone who has the answers! 1) In Novare Coast the nodes have 8 bars on them. When all 8 bars are your color, it attacks the enemy bunker. When all 8 are the foe's color, it attacks your bunker. Who has control of a given turret when the bar was previously 8 of your color, but the enemies manage to get 6 of their color (with 2 of yours remaining) showing? 2) In Huttball there is a node on the ground that sends you flying. I cannot seem to figure out how to predict which way it will send me. It doesn't seem to send you in the direction you were moving. Is it just random? 3) Assuming people are working together in Void Star, is it a good idea for me (as a Trooper healer) to go with the small group that breaks off (usually a few stealthy types) to go to the other door, or am I just blowing their cover? Should I stick with healing the large group that attacks the targeted door? 4) It seems like the naming conventions for each map can be confusing, because you can start for two positions. I've heard folks call out for help from "left" in Civil War and Void Star but mean, depending on who is shouting, either the east or west node. Throw in "snow" and "grass" for good measure, and you have half a dozen people each calling it something else. Is there a reason why we don't just use map directions? 5) When I was leveling up, at the end of a map, even when we got stomped into the ground, most folks would throw a "gg =)" or "good game" or "at least we tried" in there. Once I hit 50, I noticed most people were using "gg" in a sarcastic sort of way. I'd been adding my customary "good match" into /ops while the scoreboard ticked down: is that a pvp social mistake? I certainly didn't want to come off as rude or sarcastic! 6) I will inevitably think of something else right after I hit submit new thread. Thank you guys for any answers you can throw my way!

Could you help all the noobs in the crowd (like me!) out by telling us where the quest for the free MK-2 is? I picked up my previous set of Recruit armor from the same box that coughs up the dailies and weeklies, but I'm not seeing anything new.

Not shocked - as it had happened before, as well on other maps - but pointing out that there may be another reason for it to appear that you're on the "wrong" team in Hutball (or any map, presumably). The OP more or less said "The scoreboard said I was on the other team, wierd!" to which other people replied "Oh, that's a UI issue!" - and in some cases, it probably is. I was just pointing out that it might not just be a UI issue since you might actually be on the other team. As most claims of that sort get smacked silly with the "pix or it didn't happen" line, I figured I'd dig out a screenshot showing a republic vs republic match for folks who hadn't experienced one. As you can see from my chat, I have no idea what causes them (too many of one faction in the queue, not enough of the other?).

Earlier posts seem to indicate that appearing on the "wrong" team is just a UI issue, and can be fixed by resetting your UI. I was trying to show an example of when being on the "wrong" team was clearly more than a UI error, since the map functioned just fine fine for me and my teammates on the "wrong" team. Sometimes ... you really do wind up on the other side!

I think there might be something else going on, because my republic character really was on the Rotworms team (at least three times now) in the past few weeks. Purple beams of light on the ball carrier, rotworm themed announcements from Barron Deathmark when we passed/etc, and both teams were clearly made up of republic characters. Here's a shot of the latest scoreboard, showing that we actually scored a point - which means the goals were working properly for a Rotworms team as well, and it wasn't just a UI error. http://www.kallahdreamsong.com/swtor/Republic_Rotworms.jpg I'm fairly certain this has happened to me on the Coast map as well, but I didn't think to snag a screenshot at the time.

Lt. Kallah Del-Alems, reporting for cookie duty, sir! /salute Well, it turns out that killing imperials is vastly easier than drawing with a straight line with frosting, but I figured if I were all bringing cookies to the thread I'd better make one that's big enough for everyone: http://www.kallahdreamsong.com/RealLife/SWTOR_cookie.jpg Hurry, my squad and I almost have the whole Empire side eaten already!

Thank you for all the suggestions! I swung by the low level social vender to check, and sure enough, it's a skirt for the ladies and pants for the gents. The good news is that I was able to finally able to catch my buddy online and the two of us finished off the first planet and flew away into the space-sun-set in our shiny new ships - and now I have new pants.

I've fired up my first serious alt, a little Sith healer, and have been enjoying seeing the Imperial side of things. Unfortunately I was not digging the look of "lower robes" (why don't they use the amazing cloth simulation this game has?) and looked through the GTN in search of a pair of pants. When I realized that nearly every piece of gear I would ever equip in my leg slot would have that same horrible "stretch the texture" look, I started poking around for another idea. That backup plan turned out to be social gear, and I set out at once to get Social Rank 2, seeing at the Rank 1 set has - you guessed it - the same skirt look for female characters. After running Black Talon a dozen times or so I was all set, and promptly found myself in a bind. I haven't done a single class quest past level 10, since a friend of mine and I are supposed to be doing our class quests together, as we wanted to see each others' stories. That means I don't have my own ship, and when I tried to stow away on a friend's flight (as I had done on my main character, with a friend's ship) I was informed by an error message saying you cannot get on others' ships until you have your own. Since I don't have a ship, and I can't seem to bum a ride off anyone else, I don't know how I'm going to get to Belmora in order to pick up my Rank 2 social set! I was only able to find shuttles to the first three planets on the space station. Is there any way to travel off world before you have a ship?

It depends on your class. Leveling up solo (even with your companion) teaches you almost nothing about real healing, because you simply don't have to make the choices (and learn from them) that separate experienced healers from folks still learning the tricks of the trade. Throwing yourself into the occasional Warzone will do wonders for picking up good healing habits (such as deciding which of the three people taking damage to heal and keeping in range of your teammates) and let you put to use skills that don't generally get used in solo play (such as group heals). Other aspects of the support classes really shine in PvP as well, like how to properly use CC abilities (such as stuns, interrupts, and lock-downs) which come in very handy during harder content like Flashpoints and Heroic areas! That said, leveling up entirely in PvP will leave you missing out on companions (and in turn limit your Crew Skills) and almost the entity of the story content - which isn't a half bad story at all, and the voice acting is pretty solid. If you haven't already seen your class arcs on another character, I'd say it's absolutely worth taking a break to see the Class missions, if nothing else.

Edit: I completely misread your post, I'm sorry. You said "evolving".

My up and coming Jedi is a book-smart, woefully inexperienced (perhaps nearing the point of naive) young Padawan who follows the Jedi code almost painfully to the letter. Seeing as getting all touchy-touchy with each others' light sabers is strongly frowned upon, it would be entirely out of character for her to later hook up with one of her companions. My other characters have been considerable more open minded, so I've never had to face the repercussions of turning down a companion putting the moves on me. Other than missing out on the sub-plot (of course) are there any downsides to shutting down a companion's attempts to get into the captain's quarters? I'm not worried about missing out on a few hits of affection (or even taking a big hit, so long as it's not something crazy like -5000), but it would really stink if it closed off a further quest series or whatnot. Anyone willing to toss a few spoilers in my direction?

Another very important point is to not allow a single annoying player ruin your experience with a part of the game: it's very easy to get disheartened if the first time you hop into a Warzone or Flashpoint, ask for help, and have a more experienced player jump down your throat. There's always going to be a group of people who expects new players to submit a formal research paper before they're allowed to join into group content, and while those few might (unfortunately) be amongst the most vocal out there, they really are a tiny minority of the over-all player base. Shrug them off and remember that most folks in game are players just like you - decent, average people who are willing to help out if they have the time to do so.

Greetings, I'm a causal gamer who picked up the game a few weeks ago and have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. It looks like there's some end-game issues that I'm bound to run into one day, but for now I'm just trying to figure out the basics! Right when I thought I had the whole armor, weapons, and stats business figured out, a helpful (and chatty) person offered to answer some questions for me but only managed to leave me right back where I started from. So, if you guys could just swat me in the right direction and clear up a few questions, I'd very appreciative! I thought that custom armor has no stats on the actual gear (other than it's armor type, of course, and until you get into the super-high level stuff, where it might have a set bonus on it), and that all its bonuses came from the Mod, Armoring, Enhancements and (if you're lucky) Augment slots on it. I thought it worked like this: An Example Armor Piece Armor Rating 90 40 Aim 20 Power 10 Endurance Mod: 20 Aim, 10 Power Armor: 90 Armor Rating, 20 Aim Enhancement: 10 Power, 10 Endurance So I found some armor that I liked the look of as I leveled up (I'm only 37) and kept upgrading the pieces that went in them. I noticed that the level 40 PvP pieces are really spiffy, and figured I could hit the WarZones now to start saving up commendations. That's when I was told (by several otherwise helpful, seemingly well informed folks) that I absolutely must not do this, because of the differences between PvP and PvE gear. Confusion ensued. Is there something about the custom-style PvP pieces that cannot be changed, like PvE gear? Why can't I just rip out the PvP bonus Mods, Armorings, and Enhancements and replace them with ones that have no Expertise on them? I checked out the venders, and although I wasn't entirely certain, it doesn't look like any of the PvP gear (level 20, 40, and then the fancy stuff at 50) has Expertise on the actual piece of armor - it's all on the inserts. What's stopping me from turning PvP armor into PvE armor with a new set of Mod, Armoring, and Enhancements?

Thank you very much! I'll check out that link as well, as I'm dabbling in BioChem as well!

I've poked around online a bit but all I find are mixed results (and quite a bit of it seems to be from the beta) when it comes to figuring out what order the missions are ranked in. Does anyone know what order the following labels are ordered in? Abundant, Rich, Moderate, Bountiful. Are there others I haven't seen yet that are better or worse? What all is the difference between them? Is it just increased units and a chance at blue/purple results? I feel like I'm missing a very important part of my Crew Skills, and am trying to de-noob myself, so thanks for any information you can provide!

Thanks for the quick reply! Back I go to diving through my heap of smart cells like a bizarre version of Scrooge McDuck's money pit.

Greetings, I'm sitting at 399 diplomacy, and finding that I have the same problem. I figure once my Biochem catches up I'll have a use for the sea of smart cells I'm swimming in, but I do have a question! Does anything special happen when I get my last skill point?

Green Goo is extremely common off the potted plants (and occasional organic corpse) in Coruscant. At your level you can just double back, dodge the very low level bad guys, and scoop up as much as you need. This is, however, time consuming so you might want to snag a stack off the GTN. If listings are high enough to make your wallet tremble, consider using as few as possible to level past tier one - and then sell the rest to turn a nice little profit. Even with the time spent running around, it's much faster than waiting for the right kind of mission to show up, then sending out a companion and hoping they bring back the right samples.