F2P can run as many flashpoints as they want, it's just that they only get full rewards in the first few (three?). And it really depends on the server and time of day how long you have to wait for a flashpoint to 'pop'.

I opened one Hypercrate yesterday and got 3 Jawa Junk, so it's in there. Thought I was unlucky, guess I was wrong.

I really don't see the problem?! Got HK for an alt and stored his stuff and equiped him with cybertech gear. Easy fix and not that expensive either. Most people that have unlocked him are bound to have a Cybertech alt as well and getting custom parts for droids is much much easier then for any other companion. Plus since HK profits from both Cunning AND Aim gearing him is even easier. Scaling gear for just one companion is a wasted effort, I'd rather see scaling legacy gear then just scaling gear for HK. And if for HK, why not for every other companion too? As for adding quest rewards to existing quests... I fear BW would break more doing that. Not sure this risk is worth saving a few thousand credits on the GTN (Doing just the Belsavis dailies easily nets you 125k+ and if you have HK you have a 50 able to do those).

It's different for everyone I suppose. I used to be in a raiding guild till I took a break, now I've come back the guild has disappeared (as well as the server it was originally on) and I have no intention to going back to raiding. It's not fun for ME. Now that I've returned I fell into the grinding trap (doing dailies/FPs to get comms and credits), but I hope I've gotten past that. I enjoy the storylines, so my intent is to level up 16 chars (2 of each class, male/female, DS/LS). This will probably take a frakkin' amount of time anyhow, so no need for me to do FPs/Dailies/OPs unless I really want to (and am prepared to get verbaly whipped by my groupmates because I do not have experience). And I will be taking breaks (I hope!). When it's not fun to play it's time to stop. I've ruined other games for myself by pushing myself beyond this point till it got so that I just hated the game (Raiding often contributes to this for me. It's too much like a "job" for me to really enjoy it). As for SWG... Oh boy do I miss my houses/yacht/ships. And I miss the Trader gameplay I was a crafter in Ultima Online and again in Star Wars Galaxies. Really hard to imagine any new MMO having a pure non-combat trader class (or entertainer class for that matter too).

I remember a quest on Ord Mantell where you are sent to recover stolen Medicine. The hitch: If you return the stolen medicine it's DS and if you let the thief keep it it's LS (yeah, it got stolen from the thief too. So you have to kill the new thievies to get the Medicine).

Well, not much has changed. The leveling up part to max level is still the most fun of any MMO I've tried (If you enjoy story and are not someone that is in a rush for endgame). I do not find the endgame to be particular appealing or innovative compared to other MMOs. Just the same old same old...

Lazy more likely. Doing a tour of the lvl 50 dailies easily nets me 500k+ in credits. With that amount of cash you don't want to spend hours either gathering in low level areas or running missions to get stuff for leveling up your crafting alts. For me those 20k for the stack is a good deal, the time I need to spend to get those 20k credits is way less then the time I'd need to gather the resources myself (from nodes/creature/missions).

My Armstech char never really ran any Scavenging missions, I just used Scavenging on the go (picking up nodes/droids along the way). Still am doing that at 50 while doing dailies, not sure if Bioanalysis has something similiar, but enriched Durasteel I only find out in the wilds. The only mission I ran Scavenging are those for the crafting mats as they are cheaper then buying them from the Crew Skill Vendor. For a crafting alt (get skill to 400 before getting to 50) I'd suggest buying stuff off the GTN and not leveling the gathering skill (which you can level for free and get mats at the same time while leveling). The mission skill is probably a matter of choice, wether to buy of the GTN or do yourself.

It can take a massively different amount of time to level up a toon. My first char took me from pre-launch to march (around 3 months) to get to 50. Don't remember the number, but well over 200 hours played. When my guild needed an extra tank for raiding I leveled up one in less then two weeks with about 90 hours played till 50. Leveling that way is no fun however. My advice, take your time and enjoy the sights. The level 1-50 content is great and what seperates SWTOR from other MMOs. Endgame is really more or less the same as other MMOs.

It's a design decision. As already pointed out if you didn't get 100% when you are cruel to them you'd be forced to be nice to them. If they generally brought back less credits you'd be forced to sell stuff yourself. This would make selling grey stuff via companions rather pointless. If you want a RP reason though, why not pretend that they managed to make better deals then you and just keep the extra credits for themselves.

Like they promised dual specs, grey sided gear, regular additions to the VIP and CE vendors... (the list goes on and on). I wouldn't trust them if they promised that the sun would rise tomorrow.

Yup! And you even get the 100 CC a month for the key even if you are not subscribed.

That's the sad part, it's not exactly a secret what Smedley did with SWG. How someone can spend the bucket-load of money on an MMO these days and not learn from those lessons is beyond me. Remains to be seen if Makeb will be the equivalent of NGE for SWTOR...

Well good luck with that! Getting an explanation from the Devs about anything is durn near impossible. All we can do is speculate...

Because the number of turbine points you can gain are very limited and extremely grindy as well as boring to gain (kill 100 elite trolls). It takes your hours to gain 5 TP here or 10 TP there. And you need those TPs to get access to the higher level areas. I "may" be okay with this idea if they started charging F2P/Preferred to unlock planets after the capital (so you get the two starter planets and the capital planet per faction free). There is no NEED to spend Cartel Coins to be able to progress so the comparison to DDO/LOTRO doesn't work here.

Ah the memories of SWG and my Smugglers Pet Wompa Rat (which loved to chew up Rancors and other nasties). If someone does this, they better do it right. However I seriously doubt that SWTOR has the amount of resources to make a viable "beastmaster" addition. Heck, they don't even have real space combat...

You have to take the Jawa Balloon to get to the Sandcrawler. It's a long ride though (I think ~20 minutes AND you may have to wait up to 20 minutes till the Ballon gets to the embarking station (which is in the SW of the area).

I don't think this is really necessary and I can tell the reason why. Not one of my Cartel Coins in my Ledger has been spent yet (those I got from subscribing/CE/etc.) and that's because I bought all those things I wanted from the shop from the GTN or other players with credits.

This! Though I can hardly stomach more then 2 social runs a day (and there is always that guy that doesn't want to use the spacebar...).

Especially great is when they go after the tough targets and leave the medics alone. I play a Scoundrel and if I don't ask for it atthe beginning of a FP I never get the chance to CC with my tranq. Doesn't cause wipes, but it sure puts a strain on my healing. Too bad I can't let a DPS die on purpose (My personal skillcheck: Noone died=I healed well).

Your point is? I don't get what you want OP. You say you don't want the restriction to go away, but what do you want?

Clearly not working as intended. I bought the same thing for an alt account of mine (hoping to get my son to play SWTOR instead of the "other" game). Works just fine there, that account can use and equip artifact items. As for the ticket system in-game I do not use that anymore, the chance of getting a reply is slim, if you get a reply the chance is slim it relates to your problem and if it relates to your problem the reply is "It's a known issue, we are working on fixing it. Sorry for your inconvenience...". The support page/e-mail mentioned does sometimes work, but it does take some time. Good Luck! Hope you get that fixed for your buddy.

I want my Womp Rat back! In SWG my Smuggler had a Womp Rat, wish I could have one again (Beastmaster is too much to hope for though I guess).

I've given up on them. Since these are scripted on-rails shooters it's just a matter of trial and error and time (lots of time) to figure them out. The degree of accuracy needed is probably too high for me (The rep datacron on Coruscant in the Justicar Sector took me over an hour on one toon because I missed one of the several consecutive jumps you need to get it). I can get the rewards elsewhere while having a lot more fun (Doesn't really matter if I can make 100 or 140 FCs a day and those extra 12 BH comms a week aren't that big a deal either). Too bad that the gap between the new space missions and the old ones is so huge. Some sort of middle ground would have been nice (Why make all 6 missions Nintendo-Hard? Make 2 challenging, 2 hard and 2 Nintendo-Hard...)

Well I can tell you the reason why I sub. It's because without a sub the game is not playable (in my opinion). You can either sub completely or have the mini-subs (called weekly passes, but paying to get access for a limited time is a sub), but there is certain content that you cannot access without a sub. Plus the restrictions (which at the moment can only be avoided with a sub) limit you (max number of daily comms is 175 with stuff there costing up to 300 (+25% non-sub "tax")) too much to seriously play. Now I'm not saying F2P is too restrictive, rather I'm saying that EA/Bioware managed to find the balance of restrictions that angers both F2P'ers and Subs. Subs just gain too little extra/appreciation to make it worth 15$ while on the flip side F2P (talking about preferred incl. unlocks here) is stifled with restrictions that are too harsh. Leave those restrictions, but give players the chance to buy them off for a one-time purchase (let it even cost a lot). Idealy the way F2P should work (in my opinion) is that new content gets added regularly which is free to subs, but costs to unlock for F2P (Like Section X Authorization). Subs should be the convenince package where you just get everything (except for fluff and ease-of-life stuff) while F2P you get what you pay for. Only works though if regular content updates come (or it will go the way of LOTRO where you kind of buy your Lifetime sub in pieces).