Flip that around. Because the subs are always quick to say, "Why should you get something for free, that I'm paying for?" So I tend to believe that, no, a game's developers aren't going to be quick to welcome players who aren't paying for their game. They're trying to maintain and build their game, after all.

I was pointing out one of my traditional headaches in regards gear, and pointing out it's an issue I will personally not have to deal with anymore apparently. From what I'm reading and looking at, which is incredibly limited right now, gear will come to those who DO these activities and at the rate of difficulty they DO them. AND that gear will be divvied out according to Advanced Class, so I won't be getting tank-gear for my healer. RNG is always a "w"itch. I've literally gone months without getting a piece of gear from the Operations I was running around back in the days of DF and DP goodness, mind you. I respect people complaining at being at the mercy of the RNG gods all over again. But it's not something I am really going to join in, either.

This. I don't know enough to make a reasonable judgement about how the system is going to work, so watching everyone freak out, to me, is shrug-worthy. All I hear is, "I hate change, any change and all change!" There simply isn't enough data there, for me personally to say Yea or Nay just yet. And frankly, if it doesn't "work" they will only adjust it till it does. I was kind of bewildered by the changes to the cartel boxes, for instance. As in, "why are they even changing it?" I sort of feel the same way this time around. But then I remember the headache I get every time someone INSPECTS my character in the warzone and then whines I don't have enough "whatever" on my gear. The notion I no longer have to stress about changing out my gear when I switch from PVE to PVP or vice versa is almost appealing. Hey, maybe I'll start doing more upper-level PVP again! Maybe. But it's different and I am not sure what to expect just yet. So I'm wary but not over-concerned.

Can I admit, to being one of those incredibly strange people who just likes playing the same story through numerous times? Sometimes it takes me a couple playthroughs to reach my own personal sense of how that character is SUPPOSED to be -- to find a canon, if you will. But once I've gotten what I think of as a canon character tale, I just enjoy rolling that same story over and over again. Heck, I don't even change their looks up during the second and sometimes third runs. I kind of think it's like finding a book you really like, and just reading it repeatedly, shrug. For me, the hardest character to get nailed down right was the Imperial Agent. I actually leveled about 3 or 4 Agents up to level 30+ before deleting them. I could never say what was really wrong with the characters, past that I just didn't like them. I didn't feel like they were "right". So I finally rolled a guy Agent, and then I made him darkside as heck. And THAT playthrough was perfection. I almost had a similar experience with the Inquisitor. Except I'd already endured it with the Agent, so I ultimately finished with 2 complete Inquisitor playthroughs, one lightside female and one darkside male. Lucky for me, neither one of them was really able to romance Ashara successfully, lol. (I ultimately preferred my Nox, mind you.) But I'm good about choosing looks long before setting into the game, funny enough. If I find I need to change up their looks, I just use the appearance designer and move along. Anyway, that's me. I tell people I'm just weird, and then keep on doing my own weird gameplay and loving it.

I don't know. I honestly prefer most of the romance options for female characters, over the opposite. So that my favorite companions tend to be those characters, even. Which isn't to say I don't like a couple of the male-character romance options. But I tend to veer towards characters that are dynamic or more complex, that make me THINK or challenge my sense of understanding. (1) Torian Cadera has a habit of saying so much. Using very brief phrases and words that hide a deeper meaning under the surface. I love listening to everything he says! Even telling my Hunter how much he cares ends up being a nuanced turn of phrase, that's just plain incredible. (2) Malavai Quinn is danged intelligent. He provides a perspective on Imperial society that fascinates me, and the way he stumbles between a major battle of two powerful Sith had me stopping long enough to think, "Well, crap. What would *I* do in that situation?" By the time I was done, I figured there was just more to him than ANYTHING you see on the surface and I adored him for it. (3) Corso Riggs is cute. He's obviously not my favorite romance (that's Torian, btw). But he's this cute, adorable foil for my utterly irreverent Smuggler girl and they work so dang well together. He's funny, he's loveable, he's puppy-dog-cute -- my Smuggler girl loved him. He also makes a great companion for my guy Smuggie, and he's definitely a companion I'm eagerly looking for coming back. My Smuggler and Agent are both guys. So I never romanced Vector. Sorry, btw -- I couldn't get past the bug-thing. But Vector's cool enough my Agent considers him a real friend. And since my Agent's totally darkside and vicious as heck given the chance, it says a lot that he likes Vector. And just to clarify, yes ... I'm a female player, and been here since Beta.

In my own experience, it isn't a question of any one class being better than another. And that doesn't go merely to the question of Healer classes. But also DPS and even tank classes. But the truth is, that some people will excel in one class or another, only to struggle with another class. Even if all those classes are supposed to DO or ACCOMPLISH the same task. So make sure you're familiar with what kind of healing each class does, rather. Then figure out what you would probably do better. Some players are great at standing in place and casting heals focused on one target or another. Others want heals that are more mobile, so they can move around, etc. (1) Sorcs and Sages have pretty great AOE heals, with their puddles. They're relatively squishy but they have awesome survivability, considering their bubble and phase walk. They're also good at focused heals on specific targets, and they end up doing A LOT of heals over time. The trick to effective heals with a Sorc or Sage is properly managing your Force, rather. (2) Mercs and Commandoes are amazing burst healers. A Mando healer can bring a single target back to full health in seconds, from just a single burst of two instant heals. They can accomplish exceptional numbers given the chance, and with their heavy armor are very hard to kill in an Operation or warzone. I've literally had people scream at me in a warzone, "Friggin' DIE, sheesh!" (3) Scoundrels and Operatives are mobile healers, and their heals are constantly rolling. They rely on HOT heals, rather than single, focused target heals. And their burst heal rate is negligible. But get their heals rolling and the actual heal rate they can accomplish is absolutely stunning. They also have what I consider 2 of the best AOE heal abilities in the game, so they can heal A LOT of targets only at once. And their disappear abilities allow them to support the group with pretty amazing pick-up-a-lot-of-dead-people in the middle of a boss fight. But as a class, Scoundrels and Operatives are difficult to play WELL and many of the best healers I've talked to can't stand playing as a Sawbones.

DVL has been a rather interesting adventure as a healer. Recently had a run-in during a flashpoint that went something like this: DPS dude #1: "Your healing sucks." Me on my DVL Operative: "Well, I didn't heal you right then." DPS dude #1: "Why the heck not?" Me: "First you were too far away. Then you ran up and LOS-ed me behind that pillar. And finally. You stood right there in the boss' cone-attack. I don't typically heal the DPS who stands in stupid. I healed the tank, instead." DPS dude #1: "Do you even know how to heal on an Operative? All you keep using is that measly instant heal." Me: "Kolto Probe is the bread and butter of Operative healing, although I'm also using Kolto Injection for burst heals on the tank whenever I have to. Consider looking it up, there are several great guides online." DPS dude #1: "Idiot. Is this the first time you played an Operative healer?" Me: "Nope. I prefer Operative/Scoundrel heals, although Merc/Commando heals is pretty fun, too." DPS Dude #2: "This entire conversation is priceless." Tank: "Heck yea."

This will turn fast into a "who's your fave companion" thread; and I don't even have to read much more of the thread to see it happening. So I'll just interject here, with my own favorites. Just to allay the bickering commentary straight-off, mind you. I don't mind Gus. Seriously, the fish-man is funny as heck! But I better adored Corso and Akaavi on my Smuggler's ship. And I've made a lot of Smugglers, so I got to know the companions on that ship pretty well. My guy Smuggie adores Akaavi, is pure bro-friends with Corso, and secretly laughs at Gus whenever he forgets how Gus accidently helped get him and Corso dropped into a pit full of Wampas that one time. My favorite companions in the game, though, remain: (1) Torian Cadera (2) Malavai Quinn (3) Corso Riggs (4) Akaavi Spar (5) Raina Temple I also kinda like Khem Vaal, who strangely grew on me like he was a dang fungus of some sort. Vector is a tad bit cool whenever I forget he's really a BUG or just crawling with bugs, and I'm not a fan of bugs. Blizz is pure awesome-sauce, cause he's friggin' Blizz and duh. And of course, Gault Rennow because he's just amusing as crap with his sleaze-ball-ness. But that's just me.

Are you going in there Solo-Mode? I had a similar issue when I fought Jos and Valk, where it reset shortly after they called out their little pets to swarm me. I was knocked back to the edge of the platform and the fight suddenly reset. I was bummed. Second go-round on them, I avoided the edges of the platform like wild and kept my companion squarely in the middle, too. And it worked for me. Have you tried going in there with a buddy, btw? Even on Solo-Mode, you can enter with another player and both of you get one of those spiffy droids. Makes the fighting go faster, trust me. But no, there's no way to finish SOR without battling your way through Blood Hunt. It's part of the story, shrug.

Maybe it depends on how you perceive the character. My own Male Consular is one of my favorite characters. His monotone of a voice fits his personality perfectly; since I view him as over-young and over-prone to an extreme interpretation of the Jedi Code. I even left him a body-type 1 character to illustrate his sheer youth. He would tell you, if you asked him that eventually time and experience will likely shape him, his personality, his character -- and even maybe his tone. But in the meantime, he is precocious, diplomatic and intelligent, and powerful. And he acts it. The voice fits him. My own favorite voices in-game belong to the males Smuggler and Agent and the female Warrior, though.

I won't belabor the requests for more group content, here. It's been said, that Bioware is working on new group content and I'll remain hopeful we'll see some more group content before too much longer. Yes, my fingers are crossed. And yes, I will have some oldster players return to the game when it happens. In the meantime, Blackphantom ... focus on the players you have. I've made it a point to keep my guild's schedule as chock-full as possible with whatever content is available. It runs the gamut, from Operations, to DVL leveling, to PVP, to Conquest, to just plain 'ole fun games and races and puzzles. I just try to give the members a little bit of everything, until they find themselves a niche they're happy enough with and stick around. As for Bioware , I'm hoping most of all for updates and changes to the management tools for Guilds in-game and, yes, that's the drum I continue to beat over and over: -- MORE space on the roster for characters, because no, 1000 isn't enough. -- MORE attention to the Roster set-up itself and why is it still so dang buggy; because I hate how it refreshes every single time I bump someone's rank or make changes to their member note. -- MORE work needs doing on custom chat channels. It's a headache trying to keep my members safe from abusive trolls; give me the tools to better assist them. -- And MORE for the love of all that's good! Someone please revise how to assign and keep track of keys on Guild ships and strongholds! I had to spend a solid half hour the other day and trek through - I kid you not - 50+ pages of character names to get two players keys to just one of our Guild's ships the other day. Save me! For all that Bioware's already done to help out the Guilds, thank you! Sorry for being the bum to ask for MORE.

<Covenant of the Phoenix> will be battling it out in the Guild Stronghold during Monday's regular Guild Night antics -- with Companion Duel Contests galore! Guild Night is every Monday, and focuses on having fun through games, puzzles and events that maximize social time within the Guild. Also take a look at our newest Recruitment Video for Conquest: Covenant of the Phoenix in Conquest. We are enjoying the chance to capture planets for our newer and returning members during the build-up towards KOTET and basically having fun! If you'd like more information about the Guild or about our Conquest efforts, feel free to touch base with me in-game (Gaibriel Duncan is my toon on the Republic-side) or our Conquest Lead Officer, Rinuven. And check out Covenant of the Phoenix on our forums anytime: http://www.covenantofthephoenix.com/forums/

We regularly schedule Story Mode operations, designed specifically for gearing and essentially showing newer or returning players the ropes. Story Mode runs are usually scheduled for Wednesday and Saturday nights. Only don't hesitate to ask to join one of those runs. And remember, while our scheduled runs usually fill up fast we have some members who randomly put together Operations routinely, too. Keep an eye out in our custom chat channel.

It's a Shadowlands convention, apparently, lol. Our own Guild's been on Shadowlands for quite a bit. I personally was part and parcel of several different guilds before finding my current home. Funny story, mind you -- I was randomly leveling an alt in the last days of one of the older guilds on the server, when I caught sight of a recruiting message and decided the guild's XP bonus was worth nabbing. Over 3 years later, I still tell my guild-mate it's his "fault" for grabbing me up, lol. In other words, don't become discouraged. I have been active in no less than five guilds in SWTOR (and more in other games, too). The first guild I was a part of in SWTOR faded out in the first several months after the game released, even; I only kept playing. It's an MMO, anyway. Sometimes finding the right group of people to play with takes time. Waving at everyone visiting the forums from Shadowlands, and never hesitate to touch base with me in-game! Always fun to hang out and do random fun stuff, hehe!

Why? It keeps the responsibility of leadership focused and direct. You always know who to blame, lol.

Erhm, no. One GM per guild. You can designate ranks for other players, with multiple officers galore. You can also allocate tremendous permissions for each rank that you as the GM describe. Some guilds create officer ranks that are "great enough" to access pretty much the entirety of the Guild bank, for instance. But there will always be SOME actions that only the GM can perform.

No. There are a bevy of miscellaneous details that can only really be handled by someone with the rank of GM in the guild. Only the GM can manage the varied permissions on such support mechanisms as the guild's bank and ship, distribute keys for access to the ship and stronghold, approve the ranks of officers, and purchase additions to the ship and stronghold (i.e. open up rooms for expansion, etc). If the GM is out of touch for too long, those necessary functions of the guild just can't happen. I would love personally to see some changes to the overall guild management system. But this isn't one of them, either. Rather, I want more character space on the roster, changes to the current bug-ridden roster, improvements to the custom chat channel system so we can manage communication between multiple guilds while still keeping our members safe from personal attacks and harassment, and some other sundry things. But logging between my characters to make sure all the work's being done is MY responsibility, I think.

But this IS what happens. When a Guild Leader is inactive for too long, the leadership passes automatically to another active character in the Guild. Typically it's a character ranked at least one level below the Leader. It's how sometimes you hear of players who randomly became a Leader of their Guild. OP, why didn't you contact the individual in your Guild who became the leader? I can relate to the hassle, mind you. I'm leader of a multi-Guild community, and I have forgotten to log over onto the GM-ranked toon of one of our smaller guilds before. I just asked the guy who inadvertently became Leader of that guild to revert the GM rank to me again, and it was all good and done. We even got a good laugh out of it. Otherwise, if the Guild isn't willing to accept you back as Leader it's going to be purely difficult to fix. I mean, it's not exactly fair to the players who DID remain active and DID take up the responsibility of leadership when you disappeared. They have themselves devoted themselves to the management and donation of the guild while you were gone, after all; likely put time and in-game credits and other sundry efforts into taking care of things. Perhaps you can try working to repair whatever issue you're having with those players who can fix this for you, is the best course of action, here.

Other than our questionable maturity, so long as you consider our Mumble conversations lol .. feel free to hang out with our own guild members, Baker. <Covenant of the Phoenix> plays the game everywhere -- in Operations, Conquest, and warzones -- and we have a lot of people so it's easy to bump into us. Never hesitate to say howdy and just jump into some event or activity we have going on, or visit our forums to consider our schedule maybe: HERE. You can always find us around! Just plain welcome back to the game! Here's hoping you are having fun!

Take in a deep breath, lol. Sheesh. What they ACTUALLY said was that millions of characters have been created. In the course of 5 years of gaming, that number isn't terribly beyond imagining. Certainly not enough to get all hot and bothered about, and then yelling "LIES". If every person who's ever played the game played even ten characters, then the numbers start to make sense. Personally I don't really care, either way. There are worse things to be upset over, I think.

I am going to second and cheer on everything in this post, and thanks much for posting it, Ulavii. As one of only 2 people who can get our guild's officers ranked up properly, I can tell you the constant reloading of the Guild list is all on its own mind-boggling frustrating. Tabbing through 900+ character names to get all those alts properly noted and ranked appropriately is time-consuming and annoying enough; then when you have 8 separate guilds to check through, the headache becomes even more harsh. Please save us.

I do appreciate the time and attention given to this issue, Eric. But I did want say, that reporting every bit of spam mail clogs up my CSR window so badly. That when I was on the receiving end of real attacks and harassment in-game, I wasn't able to report it because I had too many "open" reports. Since I think reporting real and cruel harassment and attacks takes precedence, I stopped reporting the spam and only delete them now. Just wanted to indicate an issue that I've seen coming from the "report all the spam" messages. I mean, I do think it important you know how much spam is inundating the game. But I'd rather get help when I'm on receiving end of in-game personal attacks, than clear my mailbox from silly adverts.

I generally only ever change up 3 of the companions' looks. Mostly because I like the look of them, except for these particular three. Companions I don't even LIKE don't get changed or even really played with so much. But the three that I do prefer customizing include: (1) Khem Val gets the customization #2 off the CE Vendor every time. I tend to call him my Mutant Ninja Turtle whenever I get him properly decked out, hehe. HERE he is, looking spiffy. (2) I give Arik Jorgan the tiger-looking customization #2 bought on Ilum: HERE. (3) Finally, Corso Riggs gets a better hair-do with #7 off the CE vendor, because I prefer him with a more Asian-appearance. HERE he is. To be honest, Corso's look is perhaps my favorite customization in the game.

So far, our own guild is off to a good start this week: http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r91/phyreblade74/SWTOR%20Screenies/swtor%202016-07-05%2014-39-38-77_zps9uzptezb.jpg Conquest, woot!

Pbbfftt ... And you? Who're you to tell hundreds of players they can't earn the same rewards you can?