Haha, yeah. But actually it seemed a bit easier even before that ability is available. Subjective of course-- no hard data. Of course you get that at level 10 so yeah that is a big damage booster. As AoE goes though I still just love the XS flyby on my gunslinger even if it doesn't do as much damage as other aoe for such a high level ability (level 48).

I haven't really compared, but it in pve for me it seems easier to take down mobs solo with a commando on lower levels than it was when I was leveling up my main which is a gunslinger. I haven't leveled up a commando fully so I can't compare yet at 50. And by easier I mean less worrying about cd & ammo like I do with cd & energy with the gunslinger (at least for me). Of course it could be that by the time I got around to making a commando alt I was just more used to the game.

Junk statistics and junk science will be the death of us all. Anecdotal evidence? Sample size of 15? 15 of my friends don't like Coke, therefore it's a failed product? 100% of people that drink Coke will die one day, therefore Coke kills everyone that drinks it? Is the scientific method still taught in school? I know the psychological reasons people think like this, but wow. Makes me sad.

I always go crazy with missiles. The shuttle ends up on fire in the end, but it makes it. I've seen some of the larger ships manage to hit the shuttle so I usually drag-select lock the turrets on them with missiles while concentrating on the fighters with blasters. And when no turrets are around, I use missiles on the fighters. If my missiles aren't at 0 at the end of a mission, I haven't been killing enough.

I have noticed that there are some Elites that seem harder to kill than Champions of the same level. I remember about level 31-32 on my smuggler gunslinger I could kill sith warrior elites without getting close to death, but sith sorcerer elites kicked my butt a few times until I figured out a way to kill them. I did do it eventually, but I would have expected them to be closer in difficulty to the other sith elites hanging around in the same place. And certainly not harder than a champion level npc.

More pvp happens on the forums than in the game.

And there are plenty of zombies in scifi. They aren't all created by supernatural stuff. And if you want to nit-pick on what is scifi, what is fantasy, what is horror... A lot of things in Star Wars land on the fantasy side rather than scifi side unless you apply Clarke's 3rd law.

And if you care about the class stories for all 8 classes, it doesn't seem too fast to me. I tend to focus on one character at a time and get through the story. When I get all 8 on a server leveled to 50. I'll start new ones on another server and try playing them differently (scoundrel instead of gunslinger, etc.) I also want to have time to play other games, watch movies, spend time with significant other and friends. If this game took as long as EQ1 to level you'd never get to experience the story of all 8 classes. Or I wouldn't--not going to spend 8 years just to see each story all the way through for each class. If I like the game enough to play for 8 years, that's one thing--I would hope new content comes out during those years. But I would rather be playing with the new content (or doing PVP or something) rather than still be trying to level up.

Assuming it takes 96 hours, that is 4 days playing 24/hours a day. If you only have 2 hours a day to play then it is 48 days to get to 50. Is that too fast?

Hah, yes. The point being if you don't like PVP you shouldn't play EVE. But a lot of people signed up and didn't know that so my post was more for the benefit of people that never played it. I wasn't bashing EVE either. But it is harsh--it's designed that way. I like EVE, but it takes commitment for me to enjoy it the way I want. Since I like playing other games and EVE started taking too much of my time, I went more casual on EVE. So less combat PVP for me. Note that *everything* is PVP in EVE. The economic and political PVP is actually more brutal: taking out entire corps or alliances with out a shot fired. As for lag, I've been in some of those lag fests and they are not that fun during the battle, but the results (gaining strategic control, etc.) are. I've been in good sized battles that were not laggy, but they were way smaller than LXQ2-T.

The death penalty in EVE is harsh. Too harsh if your are casual probably. If you are in a good Corp (guild) they can help you replace stuff of course. You get killed in EVE, you lose the ship you are in permanently, lose everything equipped, and your wreckage looted by anyone nearby. So people definitely want to kill you if you have good stuff on your ship (or just for kicks). PVP is nonconsensual even in supposedly secure space. People will suicide attack you (in secure space attackers will get killed by the "space police") to get your stuff. If they podkill you (for those not familiar, quick explanation: the pod = you), you can loose skill points, lose implants, set you back months. And you really have to be in a good corp to PVP so you don't spend time grinding to get your stuff replaced. Of course if you like being cannon fodder, you can get right back into PVP and that can actually be fun. Flying around in a starter ship (the only free one you can get) attacking drones is fun while they ignore you (then they one-shot you). Imagine a death penalty in SWTOR that sent you from level 50 to 1 with all your equipment gone. That's the only way to really illustrate the harshness of EVE's death penalty compared to SWTOR's death penalty (some repair costs). I had some fun in EVE when I had time to devote to it. I was involved in many large fleet actions and that was fun, but you must have resources (good corp) to really enjoy that aspect. But when life just got in the way, I had to go more casual, I just couldn't have as much fun (can still do economic PVP there). EVE is pretty hard core PVP compared to everything else. It's more like old text based MUDS: You enter a dark room. You are backstabbed. You are dead.