I whole heartedly agree that PvP'ers have been given the short shrift within SWTOR. And anything that can be gained as a prestigious reward is worth defending. Is a companion that prestige recognition you've always sought? But... again, drawing upon the Bartle Test as a foundation... I would ask is it really the PvP aspect of the game that is drawing you into the need for a companion. And when I say "you", I mean PvPer's in general. I suppose I mean that in two parts.... Firstly, as a PvPer were you (as a demographic) looking to KotFE and yelling for all to hear "BIOWARE... WE REALLY WANT A NEW COMPANION!!!!!". Or is it more the case that having been offered a "nod to PvP" from the developers, that when it's a choice between that and nothing... we'll vigorously defend "that"? Secondly, is it your "Killer" aspect (from the Bartle classifications) that really wants a companion? Or is it that the individual is someone who might also score highly in one of the other classifications? I suspect the latter - and as such, I would hope that "companions as a reward" would be given to people who completed tasks better aimed at those other classifications. I can see the point of companions for Achievers. Even Socializers to an extent. But not Explorers and not Killers. And yes, I recognise that there are always overlaps within real people - but that's where the availability of choice is so important when choosing how to spend their time. There's a reason why there were no PvP related datacrons - but why (some) PvP players still collected them all anyway. It's good design. [This line intentionally left blank]

Fair point. I see your point and disagree. My experience of MMO's is that the Bartle Tests are roughly about right. There are groups of players who enjoy different content and have different goals. There is some overlap and a need for the players who do overlap different styles of game play to be able to experience those different aspects of the game. PvE'ers by our nature for the most part want a feeling of ongoing progression, to pit ourselves against a mechanic and over time - beat it. A grind, even if we don't want to acknowledge that sometimes. PvP'ers in my experience seek much more short term goals and ones that acknowledge their epeen. Rankings. MvPs. Leaderboards. In SWTOR, even the "a unique mount or title that only I and a select few others got". It would therefore be my assumption... and I can only state what I think, not what you want me to think... that PvP'ers aren't the primary demographic for collecting companions. Some undoubtedly will - as I say, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. But the majority... the core... nope. I think PvP is essential to MMO's. I think it needs to be done right (I don't think SWTOR delivers that). But it needs to be optional and objectives that involve it need to be primarily aimed at what the Bartle Test calls "killers". Yes, I might be wrong. But the number of threads that pop up each time something like this happens makes me think I'm not in a minority. [This line intentionally left blank]

Ah yes, I'll probably edit my post to mention that. SWTOR isn't my first MMO. I've tried PvP before and disliked it. The mechanics/goals aren't the issue... I just don't like the combat. I don't like dying to another player. It's a choice and primarily the reason I roll characters exclusively on PvE and RP servers. On those few occasions where I end up PvP flagged (either accidentally as result of running into the wrong area or hitting a PvP tagged player rather than the NPC she/he was near - I generally just stand still and allow myself to be killed - it was my mistake after all. Then go stand on fleet until the PvP tag is removed - again, a reaction to previously being attacked while accidentally PvP tagged. Then there's the occasions like this where a developer or team lead tries to push a square peg in a round hole - with what I presume to be a goal of "showing PvP to players who don't PvP but might like it if they tried it". They create a Ratghoul event where a world boss is in the Outlaw's Den... or like this one... make PvP matches a prerequisite for obtaining a companion. Their choice to add it. My choice to express why I think they're fixing a symptom rather than addressing the core problem (PvP has been royally mismanaged and misunderstood by the developers). [This line intentionally left blank]

<--- Ruining your PvP. Up to this expansion, I've never done a SWTOR PvP match. I'm bad at it, I don't enjoy it and I've no clue about what the objectives mean and how to best secure a win. I figure with the combination of those three, I'm actually making the matches less enjoyable for those people on my team who might actually want to win. Edit: SWTOR isn't my first MMO. I've tried PvP before and disliked it. The mechanics/goals aren't the issue... I just don't like the combat. I don't like dying to another player. It's a choice and primarily the reason I roll characters exclusively on PvE and RP servers. But I want my PvE companion. Sorry PvP'ers. If I had an alternative... I'd do that instead. So far, I'm up to 6/20. So the pain is probably going to continue for another couple of days. And once I've got my 20 losses... I'll never PvP again (until the next time Bioware introduce an objective that make me PvP for one of my PvE goals). So yeah... Sorry guys. And Bioware CM's, if you see this message - could you mention to the people who look at metrics who are patting their selves on the back about increasing the amount of PvP done in this game three things. I'm never going to PvP again. You've made the game less enjoyable for me. You've made the game less enjoyable for anyone who's forced to team up with me. Oh... and for the love of gods... obviously... NO MORE FECKIN' PvE objectives in the Outlaw's Den. [This line intentionally left blank]

Class: Bounty Hunter (Mercenary) I did not start the mission before today. (27th October) Existing character who didn't have early access. I started at 1xp below level 60 today and was level 65 by the time I started Chapter VII. I tried switching instances, logging out, exiting the game completely. No luck. Eventually I gave up and returned to fleet and then my stronghold. I can no longer [PLAY] Chapter VII: The Lady of Sorrows because "This mission requires a follower that is unavailable at this time". I'm guessing that's because I do not have T7-O1 as a follower. I did have T7 before I exited the area. [This line intentionally left blank]

I just checked mine - I don't see any sort of "initializing" message in the lower left corner. There is solid grey bar across the bottom of the window. Just before the [PLAY] button become available a yellow progress style bar flashes briefly across the same area. Then the grey bar disappears and the [PLAY] button become brighter. I suppose that lack of a grey bar could be deemed as a sure sign that the [PLAY] button will or won't work - but that feels kinda cheesy to me. I do agree with something someone said earlier that the 2nd time in, when you know what to look for - it kinda works. But it's the launcher... it shouldn't be subtle or deceptive or quirky or stylised to the point of distraction... it should be simple and just WORK. No explanations needed, no "oh, you get used to it". [This line intentionally left blank]

I just wanted to provide some feedback on the new launcher now it's been out for a short while. The Play Button.... My experience. After you log in, the launch swaps over to the News / Community window with the [PLAY] button in the bottom right corner. It's a sort of Gold and doesn't do anything. Then time goes by (anything between 6 and 15 seconds depending on what I assume is server latency/load) and a pseudo percentage bar shoots across the bottom of the window. It's now a slightly brighter colour of yellow and when you press it, it (mostly) launches the full game. My Feedback. I'm sure whatever the launcher is loading from the server is important and it takes time. But other than familiarity there's nothing to indicate what it is the launcher is waiting on. For the (up to) 15 seconds that the launcher just sits there seeming doing nothing, it's practically impossible to know why the [PLAY] button isn't doing anything. If you blink slowly or turn your head away from the monitor for a fraction of a second - you might miss the yellow flash of the progress bar blasting across the bottom of the window and the change of colour of the [PLAY] button from yellow to yellow(er). The Minimise/Close Buttons.... The Feedback. Someone further down the thread mentioned this. Although as soon as I read it, I immediately recognised the problem from a time I'd used Alt+F4 to close the launcher. The Minimise button and the Close button ARE shown in the top right corner of the launcher window - but they're almost impossible to see once the window has finished being populated with all the other things that are shown. The buttons are visible briefly while the window is first being displayed, but then the background image changes to an almost perfect match for the colour of the two button. Orange again. It's the UI equivalent of finding a black cat in a coal cellar at midnight without a light. A couple of requests. Could the Launcher [PLAY] button be grey or some more contrasting colour while the launcher is still loading in the background? Could the text for the [PLAY] button be "Wait..." or something similar during that period where it won't actually launch the game? Could the [PLAY] button have different mouse-over cursor shapes for it's different states? Could the launcher have some sort of Gear / Spinning Circle / Percentage bar when it first loads to indicate that it's still waiting on data from the server? Could the launcher make a sound when the play button become usable? Could the a significant aura / shadow / background be added [Minimise] and [Close] buttons to make them (more) visible? Could the colour of the [Minimise] and [Close] icons be changed to make them (more) visible? Thank you in advance. -Woetoo Edits: Stuff in pale blue added as result of feedback provided in this thread by other users. [This line intentionally left blank]

Wait. WHAT? What does crafting have to do with arbitrary weekly goals? Isn't this like making using dyes dependant on a certain PvP ranking? Or access to HardMode content being gated by the number of Galactic Starfighter wins. Or some other such "gaming reason" nonsense? Maybe I'm missing some subtlety to this - but it looks like either "not enough people are doing conquest stuff each week - make them!!!" or "we don't like that so many people are using alts to do crafting - let's introduce a bu***hit reason to stop that happening". Edit: Another thought... I wonder if that new crafting material is BoE, BoP or BoL? This line intentionally left blank.

Okay this is one of my pet peeves. It seems to me that the Trade chat channel exists in many games for a reason. There was a need and developers of games written long ago responded to that need by creating a separate chat channel. The need continues and so current developers continue to write that system into new games. However some players are lazy. Some are ignorant. Some are just ornery. What I'd like to see is a system which encourages players to use the trade chat channels without penalising them for "getting it wrong". What I was thinking was a System Message, once per logged in session which notifies players typing certain "styles" of message into generic global channels once the message has been sent, but just once. "Warning: Your message appears to be a trade request. Please consider using the dedicated Trade chat channel ( /3 )" From what I can see the rule for spotting messages could be simple. Any message featuring specific (multi-language) keywords in a message with a linked BOE item(s) would flag the system warning. The warning would be once per session (so anyone choosing to use general chat for example can still do so). But over time, those players who were using those message without realising the gaming convention would be pointed in the right direction without the game being heavy handed about it. WTB in custom channel... Fine. LFC in guild chat or whisper... No problem. Yes. It's imperfect. WTB/WTS message which had the item name typed out rather than linking the item wouldn't be flagged. But I was intending this as a very light touch solution erring on the side of caution to avoid annoying players with false positives. It would be a slow "learning over time" solution, where players would eventually see the message a few times over a period of time and realise the advantage. Examples of "flagged" message: LF crafter {item} LFC {item} WTT {item} for item. {item} WTS WTS {item}{item}{item}{item} etc, etc. My experience on a European English and US servers is that the list of combinations of {item} and {phrase} is finite enough to catch x% of messages. As for the other y%, I assume they'll type one of flagged messages eventually or become familiar with other people's approach before it sets off my OCD This line intentionally left blank

I appreciate that any spam solution implemented by Bioware creates an escalation war of "Spammer Tactics" -vs- "Spam Solution". Implement a filter that filters specific phrases (like "1000k=8USD") and the spammers will start misspelling and using reserved characters to bypass the filters. And so on and so forth the escalation continues. I also realise that some spam comes from accounts that have been hacked and that once one character name has served it's annoying purpose, a new character is created to start the whole thing again. In games where character deletion/creating is gated multiple accounts are used. No "clever solution" is ever clever enough to remain effective forever in the face of imaginative spammers with everything to gain and almost nothing to lose. So I'd like to request a simple quality of life solution to make things a little less frustrating for players. When a player reports a message / mail as spam - the offending character is put on a temporary /ignore list for the reporting player until that player logs out. In that way, at least we as customers don't get whisper after whisper, minute after minute from the same player name offering the same deal. ofc, We could also /ignore the player after reporting the spam. But I think you can see already on the forums that that solution is more of an inconvenience to the players than it is the spammers. I would hope this might increase the number of players reporting spam (since there is a tangible benefit now). It would hopefully provide some relief to those players who's ignore lists are already full. It would helpfully help those customers returning to the game to find they've been hacked and are on half the server's ignore lists. It's not perfect. Players frequently relog onto alts. Spammers vary characters and approaches. Plus this solution would require technology not currently written into the game's infrastructure (per session ignore lists). Plus lets face it, there are already a million and one quality of life suggestions of equal (and better) quality that are vying for developer time (and money). But don't ask... don't get. Mostly don't get. Personally, I think I'm wasting my time requesting it. The game has long time been in a "if it doesn't generate revenue - it doesn't get done" mode. But it's Christmas - so my expectation needle popped slightly above "pointless" for a few minutes and the vain hope that enough quality of live improvements would mean increased respect from the community, which in turn could lead to more word of mouth referrals and ultimately more revenue for Bioware. Sadly this is a long term, ethereal solution that requires optimism. Oh the days of optimism, how I miss you. This line intentionally left blank

What's wrong.... I have 18 characters on the Red Eclipse server. I've bought unlocks to allow me access to 13 of them. Currently as a preferred player, I have 9 set as active - but my count is showing as 12 / 13. When it should be 9 / 13. A little background.... A few days ago my subscription ended. For various reasons that don't matter as far as this bug report goes - I've chosen to stay as a preferred player for a short while. Playing as preferred is something I've done before and as a result I've already bought various unlocks, including equipment authorisation, server slot unlocks and others. The server slot unlocks allow me access to (up to) 13 of my 18 characters on the Red Eclipse server. How did I break it?.... When I first logged in after my subscription ended, all 18 of my characters were flagged as INACTIVE. With a button next to each to allow me to activate each one I wanted in turn. I then proceeded to activate the 6 characters I play on a semi regular basis, a low level alt I might play for the class story until I renew my subscription and a couple of other level level toons I use as bank mules. On a few occasions, the activation process hung. On the first attempt, I waited a while with the spinning blue "wait / busy" icon showing until I eventually gave up and clicked the server selection button to reset things. Going out to the server selection, selecting The Red Eclipse again and returning to the character selection screen. I then repeated the character unlock/activate process again. However rather than waiting the 5 or 10 minutes I waited the first time... each time I encountered an unlock freeze, I quickly exited to server selection and back to character to selection to try again. Eventually after a number of stalled attempts... I had finally managed to unlock 9 of my characters. However it was then then I noticed that the server screen was showing 12 / 13 rather than 9 / 13. With potentially only 1 character slot left, I stopped. The bugs.... From what I can see there are two bugs here. Character activation stalls indefinitely (or at least appears to). I guess the backend process is timing out or lagging out. Exiting the character activation and re-requesting it quickly while an existing request is in progress results in the activation counter being double or triple counted even though it applies to a single character. This line intentionally left blank.

magi_melcior, I just wanted to point out that your guild website links are a bit fubar. The link you put in your message.... ... points to http://www.thejediorder.co.uk - which doesn't redirect to enjin. My guess would be that you paid enjin for the "extras" type package that included a URL - but the subscription for that service has ended. (Or enjin have just borked it). I tried http://thejediorder.enjin.com/ - but there's nothing on that webpage that confirms that it's the same guild, expect perhaps the GMT timezone panel. Edit: Speaking to one of your guildys today, it looks like you've got a new website recently ... http://aoto.enjin.com/ Also... You also have a link the website in your .signiture for the website. That points to "http://THE JEDIORDER.CO.UK". The [space] between "THE" and "JEDI" pretty much borks that too. At the very least, you probably want to remove the space... maybe remove the CAPS, and swap it to point to the new site anyway.

It won't happen sadly, the way F2P is currently structured. Yes, it's possible to unlock enough stuff to remove most (but not all) of the annoying F2P restrictions. Roughly speaking, the cost of buying those unlocks through cartel coins is more of less the same as purchasing the boxed game in the first place. Though if you've been playing for a while, you can buy some of those unlocks using in-game credits. If you really plan ahead, different servers have different economies - prices can vary hugely. So pick a server with a low population and small trade community (RP servers are a good bet) and buy the account version of the unlocks (account unlocks work cross server and cross region). Of course you'll need to find a way to earn credits on that server first. Generally speaking, every F2P player should subscribe for 1 month THEN go F2P. But even after you've bought all those unlocks, to actively do stuff at endgame you'll need to buy weekly passes. The cartel coin price of those weekly passes for ONE type of activity per month is roughly the same as the monthly subscription. Oh and one weekly pass only works for one character. It's not an account wide unlock. Want to do operations AND flashpoints each week... it's cheaper to subscribe. Want to do operations on two or more characters each week... it's cheaper to subscribe. Got a lot of alts already and want to actively use them for almost anything... it's cheaper to subscribe. F2P is an extended trial. It's primary reason is to get people to subscribe (Bioware have said so at a cantina tour). As a secondary benefit, it lets Bioware implement a cash shop for people already paying a subscription. Imagine it: An MMO company says they're going to launch an MMO with a subscription AND a cash shop... they'd be lynched. Yet we accepted it after the fact - because mostly we were glad the game didn't go under. F2P isn't a pay-as-you-go scheme. It *might* be cheaper, if you only play one character and only do one activity two or three weeks each month. Maybe you could get creative and pay for 1 weekly pass with credits and the next with cartel coins - but that sort of credit sink is hard to maintain on a busy server (with expensive GTN prices). So the one-off unlocks cost the same as the boxed game and the weekly passes are more expensive than the subscription. SWTOR is F2P in name only. Oh and after you've bought all those account wide unlocks and temporary weekly unlocks, etc..... You'll end up subscribing, which gets you everything those unlocks bought - so you've effectively bought everything twice. This line intentionally left blank.

These shouldn't be available via the cartel market. These shouldn't be available on the GTN. These shouldn't even be an item. (reusable or otherwise) They are a UI component. Or at least they would be in any other MMO. They should be part of the UI, available to anyone within a group who is promoted to raid leader or raid assistant via a keybind or similar UI solution. It terrifies me that people expectations have shifted so much that PAYING REAL MONEY for raid markers is seen as anything but gouging. As for Bioware, I don't know what worries me more... That you didn't think this through... or that you did. !?!!? Nobody* is going think this is a good idea. Some will hate it (as I do). Some will dislike it. Some won't care. Some will defend it, but not because they LIKE it. There is absolutely no upside to this, at least from a player's perspective. You remember us... the players? We're the guys telling our friends to play the game or dump it like a hot sack of s***. Maybe the accountant's will like it, as long as they aren't tracking the people who walk away from the game because of initiatives like this. *Okay, maybe not nobody. Such sweeping statements should be avoided. But to anyone who does think this is a good idea.. Dear gods, what is wrong with you people?!?!? It's core MMO functionality. It's not cosmetic. It may not be essential, but it's sure as hell not useless either. More than that, it spotlights the trend of where the Cartel Market is and where it's potentially heading. Maybe it's time to launch a new customer initiative, Q/A, NewsFeed, Blog, Vlog, dinner with the developers, to shift the focus away from this abomination? It's okay, you can abandon it in 6 to 8 weeks - just like all the other initiatives. Edit: Maybe this is another of Damion Schubert's attempts to prove to the higher ups that there are limits to what the community will accept from the cartel market (like he did with the grade 7 ship parts). If that's that's the case Damion... it clearly isn't working, please stop trying to help us and actually help us. This line intentionally left blank

Firstly keep in mind who you're asking here. You're talking to the people who are still subscribed to the game, so you'll get a lot of positive answers. You're also talking to the people who visit the forums, so you're also going to get a lot of negative answers in there too (forums don't tend to attract "normal" players who are merely content). Is the game going to be shut down soon? It depends. EA/Bioware originally said that the game needed 500k players to continue as a subscription game (this was said pre-launch when their staff headcount and content deliver cadence were higher). EA's earnings call (as people have pointed out) have said the game is making more money than previously. Though in fairness, that probably wasn't that hard. At one of the cantina events, someone at Bioware confirmed that most of the additional cartel market revenue is coming from subscribers rather than f2p/preferred players and that f2p is really just a mechanism to get people to subscribe. I also seem to recall that the EA earnings call also said that subscriptions had dropped below 500k. IF those 4 statements are more or less true, then you have the situation that the game is making money, but from a smaller number of subscribers than originally planned. So the danger is either those players spend less or leave the game entirely. Since then EA/Bioware will lose both their subscription AND cartel revenue. From what I can see based on the torstatus.net website, concurrent users are more or less stable and have been for a while. Week on week, numbers dip. Each week being slightly less busy than the previous week. But then "something" will happen, and numbers will jump back up again. Repeating the slow dip... jump... cycle. Right now, we at the bottom of one of those dips, but with 2.4 about to be released, expect the "jump" in concurrent numbers again next week. I'm sure the 500k number required to be subscribed has dropped since they said it, not least because their team is way smaller now than before. So there's a buffer there, a fairly large number of people who could leave and the game would still make a profit. So if the status quo continues, EA/Bioware have no reason to shut the game down. BUT... and here's where the "it depends" comes in... there are three three shiny new MMO's on the horizon. Wildstar and Everquest Next be be here within 6 to 8 months. And FF XIV (Final Fantasy 14) is already here. Final Fantasy has already launched, and honestly I don't know enough about it to comment. Wildstar seems set to appeal to competent raiders. Especially those ex-WoW / ex-EQ players who raided during vanilla wow and have a rose tinted view of raiding back then. The larger raid group sizes should mean larger guilds, which should mean more friends, which should mean a greater sense of community. Their custom engine should mean large scale events are possible, if people can get over the "WoW like" graphics style. It's in a sci-fi universe and has a sense of fun running through it. They also appear to have taken the usual MMO "list of features" and "wall of crazy" and thrown the list of features out of the window, embracing the wall of crazy and making that their to-do list. EQNext seems set to appeal to ex-EQ players and ex-SWG players. At the beginning of their reveal, they specifically said the "enough is enough" of the dungeons and dragons style of gameplay that MMOs have been using since EQ. A large number of people point to "WoW clones" when WoW was largely based on EQ and EQ was based on other things before it. EQNext seem to be going for a much more Eve/SWG style of game, with a lot of depth to the crafting systems. Add to that the semi-persistant world, enemy NPC's that spawn and "move to where they'd like to live", communal events that will take months to complete and a sandbox style world builder (in the shape of EQNext Landmark) and you've potentially got a huge hook to attract people in. Especially the SWG crowd. I don't think it's unfair to say the PvP scene of SWTOR is tiny. Bioware continue to try to keep something for PvP players to do (without breaking it or making it dull), but again at cantina events they've said that they don't believe they can ever get PvP where it needs to be. I'm sure some very talented and dedicated PvPers remain, but it is a tiny shadow of the PvP community at launch. So the question is, will Wildstar with it's hardcore raiding or EQNext with it's SWG like community mean that enough players will leave (and take their subscriptions and cartel market purchasing power with them) to the point where SWTOR is no longer profitable? And without full voice over, will those games appeal to current SWTOR players? Sadly, I think the answer is going to be yes. Those games ARE going to impact enough to take SWTOR's revenue below EA's "pull the plug" threshold. None of those games are going to be for everyone. My impression is that the sort of people who are currently spending LOTS of money on the cartel market will stick with SWTOR regardless. But for the rest, the people who are fed up of "Tuesday is patch day, followed by Wednesday which is fix the patch, patch day". Who are fed up of lag in areas with only relatively few people in them. And anyone who contributed to any of the "death by a thousand paper cuts" type threads... They're going to at least go and try those other games. That will leave a hole in the population. Other people will stop playing just because they no longer see the same old faces online any more. Then more people will stop playing because the fleets are getting to be like ghost towns (which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy). ... and then revenues are WAY down, and some EA accountant sends a memo to suspend sales of 6-month subscriptions. I hope I'm wrong. This line intentionally left blank

I whole heartedly agree with this. You can argue all you like about whether the ignore list should be bigger, whether people should use the ignore list for "this" or "that". But each of those choices are for each individual to make. Everyone's opinion about how to use an ignore list will be different. Sorry guys, you don't get to dictate how other people should use their ignore lists (yes, I see the irony). However, as an individual, if I think Player-X is worthy of being ignored - then I want to ignore the person sat at the keyboard, not his/her individual character. Yes, having the choice to ignore mixed combinations of character / account both on my side and their side is appealing to certain people. But ignore should be a simple choice, ignore or not ignore. All these combinations just add complexity and doubt. Ignore is a form of social exclusion. It SHOULD be wide ranging. It creates a feedback loop of consequence for poor behaviour. Not an individual's perspective but as a result of a large consensus of opinions. Being on one person's ignore list is trivial. Being on the ignore list of even 1/4 of your peers isn't. While it's possible to just swap to another character, there aren't consequences for poor behaviour. If you're finding queue times disproportionately long or you can't find someone to buy your goods - perhaps you shouldn't have been such a douche. Plus, it works both way around... If you can't find a group or people to sell your goods to because YOUR ignore list is so large, maybe you should reconsider whether ignoring that many people was really worth it. I would agree that the ignore list needs a to be able to store a "reason" that can be referred back to later. I disagree that the account name of the person you are ignoring / befriending should be shown. Just show the character name you first added and hold the account name hidden in the background. Privacy is important, even for small stuff like account names. Plus, extending ignore lists to cover the forums (where account names ARE used) would be a pain technically. I would also agree that the friends list also needs to be account wide, though friends lists should not be unilateral like now. They should be more like other social media, where the person being befriended needs to allow the request and have the option to revoke the privileged later if needed. Either people are your friends or they are not. And finally, I'd want my friends list and ignore list to be shared across MY account too. You're my friends whatever character I'm playing. And yes, if I thought you were a douche while playing my sentinel, my opinion didn't change when I relogged to my guardian. None of which I would expect to ever make it into swtor. But maybe this sort of feedback will make it's way into Bioware's next MMO. This line intentionally left blank

Perhaps. Although a generated 50 would start with less cash than a 50 who levelled. So initially at least, those players would need to transfer money from their main just to level crew skills and pay repair bills. In some ways it'd make a valid cash sink that wouldn't feel punitive. My suggestion was that you couldn't buy a 50 without already having legacy level 40 (or something similar). It wasn't supposed to be a "insta 50 for the swtor noob", but instead a short cut for those players who'd done it all before. Fair point. I'd hope the legacy restriction on purchase lessen the impact, making it a rare occurrence rather than the norm. But then I underestimated how many people would pay real money for the (sparkly horse), erm I mean cartel gear/pets. So maybe it wouldn't be as rare as I might hope. As I said originally, most story arcs end within the planet anyway. And a pre-rolled character could be backfilled to make sure nothing broke. After all, players levelling now can skip whole planets without breaking anything. This would just be that on a bigger scale. Again, I'll mention my intended legacy level 40 restriction. Though yes, I do agree it's possible you'd have someone with a Mercenary, Marauder and Sorcerer already buying a Sniper and having no clue about how to play it. I'd argue the same is possible with people levelling 1-50, especially when some of the key elements of players rotations are only unlocked very late on. Favourite example. A juggernaut who levels as DPS and swaps to tank at endgame. That happens now. Plus, I'd argue that open world PvP while levelling is already a ghost town. There is already too few people and too much separation. Though I take your point about maybe a change like this would make it marginally worse. And your similar question #5, I offer my similar answer #5. Fair point. And one I don't really have an answer to. How would one be different than the other? Only by intent I guess. My intent was to offer a shortcut for someone who's already seen more or less everything already and for whom levelling a 6th or 7th alt wouldn't be as fun as it used to be. But a shortcut that was limited to "almost catch up". A spot where anyone paying money would still be behind the average player. My premise remains that there are players with money but no time and players with time but no money at the extremes. And a million and one variations in between. Catering only to the middle ground seems a missed opportunity. I know a lot of people don't like the "buying power" (ie. buying anything that include stats) on principle. But on a practical level, if those stats are sub-par, would that really be so bad? I tend to dislike the "MMO's are always like that" type answers. So I question stuff. Like this. Hmm, I've no idea why I keep counter arguing this. Since generally I'm trying to argue against all things cartel market related. Especially for subscribers. This line intentionally left blank.

Your attention to detail and reasoned arguments have swayed me. Oh wait.. no they didn't. As I said originally, I'm not a fan of the cartel market and I wouldn't want anything that I considered Pay-To-Win (I can only use my own definition, trying to accommodate everyone else's definitions is impossible). However when I thought about and considered the alternatives I decided "what's the harm?". I suggested rulesets that would ensure that people initially experienced the whole gaming experience in full for at least their first couple of characters. What it comes down to is that eventually, by the 5th or 6th alt - (for some people) it becomes just a grind. ie. Not a pleasurable experience - and those people might be willing to grab their credit cards to shortcut the experience. I don't for one minute think everyone would want to buy a level 50 character. I'm not even sure I would. And I definitely wouldn't want it so that people felt they needed to buy level 50 characters. But giving people a choice seems like a good thing, especially if it provides additional revenue to fund future content. Ah. Perhaps I should have mentioned that my main characters are on the European server and my Tank was created on a US East server. Currently BW do not allow cross region transfers. This line intentionally left blank.

I did consider that. The opinion I came to was that the vast majority of decision tree choices are only valid per planet. So using Voss as an example... if Voss choices only affect Voss.. Skipping Voss shouldn't cause any problems. Repeat logic for all other planets. Choices may be persistent, but they don't have any long term consequences for future gameplay. You don't run into the guy you let live on Nar Shaddaa while questing on Makeb. Because other players killed him. Bioware could use their metrics to pre-roll characters that "virtually" made the most common choices to backfill the character's decision tree choices to ensure nothing breaks the game. Though personally, I'm pretty sure that nobody doing Makeb would ever notice the impact of a choice that Bioware made for them. If there are game breaking reasons for being unable to do 1-49 quests. Then just backfill every 1-49 quest as complete. There is precedent for this style of backfilling. A new player of Mass Effect 2 wouldn't notice that their character did or didn't save the alien council at the end of Mass Effect 1. Whereas a player of ME1 would import their character and continue where they left off. This line intentionally left blank.

Yes, there are. And as you say, in total they add 30% to each chosen speciality. My premise was that double-xp weekends were filling a gap not delivered elsewhere within the game. Those existing boosts are already within the game, therefore I presume they aren't meeting that need. They are per character, a minor boost at best and are unimaginative credit sink. What I had in mind was more wide-ranging and rewarding. At least, I hope so. 30% extra XP by completing space missions? Not the XP you get by killing fighters and stuff while actually doing the space mission... just the quest at the end. 30% extra XP for exploration? Just how much XP to you think that would be over the levelling process. Trivial in my opinion. 30% extra XP by completing class missions. Same reservations as as the space missions. Class missions quests themselves are only a relatively low proportion of the actual XP while levelling. A lot comes from the XP of killing NPCs while actually doing the quests themselves. The only one that might actually live up to the 30% promised might be the flashpoint boost. Assuming "enemies" means all enemies and not just bosses. So those 30%'s aren't quite as attractive as they initially look. Even less so compared with the 100% bonus to everything... handing in quests, killing stuff, exploring, everything during the double-xp weekends. I'm looking to make a suggestion that doesn't look like it was designed by an accountant. Something that would make playing more an attractive idea to people without feeling they'd been duped and without lessening the initial experience for new players. Something that would feel like a reward for playing, rather than something prefixed with caveat emptor. But mainly, I'm looking for Legacy to be actively and unconditionally beneficial. Not just gated access to credit sinks. This line intentionally left blank.

It's clear that the double XP weekends are highly utilised and people either want or feel the need to level alts. But the more I think about it, the more I think it's a wasted opportunity for Legacy. Firstly, before I make this suggestion, I'd like to state upfront that if it were implemented - it should should be optional.. One way would be legacy ability that grants a buff. Players could choose to use that legacy ability or not. What I'd like to suggest is a scaling XP boost tied directly to legacy. The higher your legacy, the higher the XP boost. Right up to the point where someone is legacy level 50 - it would permanently match the XP boost provided on the Double XP weekends, maybe even exceed it. That way, initial levelling of the everyone's first character is on track for how the developers planned it. Everyone would experience the full story, with non-class stories, levelling flashpoints and a lot of bonus missions thrown in for good measure. However, each 5 legacy levels... you'd gain another "rank" of the legacy XP boost. That way, each alt becomes quicker to level. Each repetition of levelling a character becomes quicker and easier. Each new character would benefit from the experience of all it's predecessors. Got legacy level 20?... good, you can skip all the bonus missions if you like. Got legacy level 40?... good, maybe you can skip that planet you hate levelling through each time. Got legacy level 50?... good, maybe you're getting close to being able to level by just doing class quests and flashpoints. Finally, a restriction. It should only be usable on characters below your current highest level character. ie. If you've got say 3 level 50 characters, a level 40 and a couple of level 10's. None of the level 50's should be able to use the boost, but the 40 and the 10's can. Likewise, when you get one of those characters to level 51... all the other 50's should be able to use it. This should future-proof the ability, ensuring that the XP boost can't be used to speed up levelling on future level cap increases... for the first character at least. This line intentionally left blank.

So... I've rerolled an alt on another server (a tank). I've already got 5 level 55's on my primary server, a couple of level 50's and about 12 level 20's I use for crafting infrequently. Edit: My primary server is an EU server. The Tank was created on a US East server. On the new server, I'm missing my high level, raiding capable, alt healer - but I find myself needing to spent the majority of my time doing stuff on my "main" characters and without the time to level yet another one. Plus I've played through all the class quests for my chosen faction and the non-class quests more times than I care to think about. I know some people find levelling alts a quick and painless process, especially when you can spacebar through everything. I'm not one of those people and spacebar'ing through everything just turns every quest into a grind for me (I do it anyway, because I've seen the story before). I dislike the cartel market. I think there are two extremes of MMO player. Players with a lot of time and no money and players with a lot of money and no time. In my opinion, cash shops in F2P MMO's should be firmly aimed at the latter and not used to double-dip subscribers (and yes, I believe the cartel market within SWTOR is primarily used by subscribers not preferred players). F2P and Preferred players are a commodity, desired by the developer, used as a resource by subscribers. Yet the majority of features that would make preferred players a resource for the subscribers are behind a pay-wall. Cartel market items should be time savers and "bling". We have the bling, we don't really have the time savers. For the players with time, but little money - I think the system should be more "pay-as-you-go", with prices proportional to the subscriber costs. In my mind, a preferred player who pays $15 within a month should be able to experience everything that a subscriber does. That really isn't the case right now. I mention all of that, because if I'm suggesting pre-made characters, despite my severe misgivings about the cartel market... imagine how much the people who actually like the cartel market would want them. I wouldn't want pre-made level 55's. I think that players should at least have to put "some" effort in. I'd have the character in 132 rating blue gear with all companions. Though I can foresee a potential set of technical issues if a player decided to go back and do "low level" questing that obtained those same companions again. I don't believe this would be pay-to-win. At least not in my mind. "win" for me is just that... putting players in a position where they could pay money to leapfrog past the content that the average active level 55 player would experience. Right now, I'd say I'd be okay with players being able to buy gear capable of doing story-mode operations (rating 150's maybe, with a couple of bits of MK-1 Black Market stuff. I assume bolster would take care of PvP?). Anything higher than that would cross my "line in the sand" in regards to pay-to-win. So rather than pay-to-win... more like pay-to-almost-catchup. Hence my suggestion of pre-made 50's. I'd want some restrictions. I still firmly believe the story within the game is still strongest element. Which is why so many people praised 1-49. So I'd want players to experience that a few times before grabbing their credit cards and bypassing it all. For that reason, I'd suggest that nobody below legacy level 40 could purchase a pre-made character. Sadly, for me, because legacy is not account wide - my tank would still remain alone. Since despite being level 55 and doing hardmode operations... he's still only legacy level 25. Despite shooting myself in the foot with my restriction... on balance, I think it's still necessary to avoid gold farmers and similar people using this service to flood the market with high level crafted gear/mats. And obviously, since someone decided that a single companion should be valued at 2100cc, actually more than the whole game costs... it terrifies me how much those same people might actually implement this feature for... but still... maybe it could work out. I've also suggested a non-cartel market solution here : http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6646950#post6646950 This line intentionally left blank.

Whilst our journey to 16man slowly continues, we find ourselves in immediate need of a dedicated HM OPs capable HEALER to keep our 8man HM progression on track. Obviously we're still looking for healers and DPS for 16man... but a healer right now, available for 2 or 3 nights each week would be an extremely welcome sight. Someone with experience of HM OPs would be great, but if not - we can work around that. We're still able to continue with 8man HM OPs right now, but it requires that our 2 remaining healers both have 100% attendance, something we try to avoid where possible. So come join us to do great (and terrible) things. This line intentionally left blank.

Another week, another update.... Terror From Beyond: Asation : 4/5 Hardmode Scum and Villainy : Darvannis : 6/7 Hardmode More updates soon(ish) This line intentionally left blank

Am I missing something? I'm very new to tanking, but I've read what I can. I've focused on swapping all that Absorb to Defense and now I've got an almost full set of Arkanian gear, with a few bits of Verpine (offhand and chest) and Underworld (Bracers and Mainhand), I'm starting to build up Absorb again, balancing it with Shield. Yet, I visit the Ultimate Commendations vendor, and Verpine gear seems to be lower avoidance / mitigation stats than Arkanian, but with higher Endurance. Isn't that just making me a squisher tank with a larger health pool? Taking a simplified example.. the mod in most Verpine gear is +57 STR, +74 Endur, + 46 Absorb. It would be replacing an Arkanian mod with +63 STR, +47 Endur, +52 Absorb. Net change: -6 STR, -6 Absorb, +27 Endur. I can see the need to have more endurance (not least for pug groups who equate high HP with high level gear). But if I have to sacrifice Defense/Shield/Absorb for it, is it really the right choice? My only thought is that with bosses hitting harder, that extra HP is the correct counter to a tank with 16k health taking a 16.5k hit. That somehow a higher health pool is a safer choice than better defensive stats. Seems counter intuitive though. I also see some gear with higher STR too. Again with a Def/Shield/Absorb loss. That at least makes some sense to me, since more STR will generate more threat - to balance out the DPS classes having better gear. Obviously the better upgrade path is to Underworld gear, but right now, my choices are Arkanian and Verpine. Is my logic flawed? Should I be less focused on the defensive stats and just buy the Verpine gear regardless? Thanks in advance, -Newbie Tank. This line intentionally left blank