Must've been a change since launch, because I do not remember reading that with my Pureblood SI.

I pretty much disagree with the OP. The Smuggler story is pretty good. The Smuggler having his ship stolen on Ord Mantell gives the Smuggler an initial conflict (with the person who stole the ship) and a goal (find the stolen ship). It's the same with the lightsaber for Jedi and Sith characters. The point in the story on Tython when the JK gets a lightsaber felt like an accomplishment. It was the same for the Sith Warrior; the way the Sith Warrior obtained his lightsaber felt like a very Sith achievement. The SI not so much. If you want to see a bad story and atrocious dialogue, play the SI story past Act I. It is the single most unsatisfying story in the game.

Plain black hood-up robes Palpatine style. I've not seen anything like that; all the black hood up robes I've seen have lights and baubles on them. I'd spend $5 just to get plain black robes with a hood up.

Hopefully I will get a white crystal in a gambling box, somehow.

It's amazing that none of the Gamebreaker panel make any mention of Turbine's F2P in comparison with TOR. I do agree that selling UI elements is silly and that there should be a limited bank option offered to free players.

In the context of TOR's characterization of each of the player characters as heroes (or anti-heroes), it does make sense. Revan was never meant to be Jedi Jesus. He was a powerful Jedi who did unique things; he was also imperfect and in possession of flaws and weaknesses. Personally, I think his end was more than fitting. The Exile got the rough end of the deal.

Ah. Yeah. I didn't realize Bioware didn't also adjust the codex entries when they took out all those titles. Did they ever address the logic (or lack thereof) behind the title purge?

They won't complete the codex entries because *shakes magic 8 ball*: You randomly capitalize the world finish in the middle of a sentence. Bioware is a Canuckistanian country, and they can't stand to see you butcher Canuckistanian English like that. On a more serious note, what codex entries aren't finished?

Epic. This must happen. His name is probably Bob, though.

Uncommon, rare, or unique aren't a guarantee. When I was unceremoniously dumped onto The Harbinger, I had to re-name my main, who was a character I created for my SWG main's back story several years ago. I didn't think anyone else would use the name, but hey... it happened.

After being spoiled by JtL, I don't really find TOR's space minigame to be very engaging. It's pretty much a side scroller, and you have very little actual control. *pew pew* *spacebar* *pew pew*. Meh. I'd still prefer to see more emphasis being placed on expanding class stories and worlds, unless they're going to completely revamp space.

If we do see individualized class content updates it will be quite some time in the future. I would hazard a guess that there will be no update to individual class story until at least 2014, if ever. The things that Bioware devs have said post release, and post flop about other kinds of content being more "efficient" lead me to believe that individual class and companion updates are so far off the radar that it's no good even thinking about them. Story is the only unique thing TOR has going for it, and if Bioware doesn't polish its current mechanics and develop some novel ones, the lack of story updates will likely lead to even f2p being a tepid success. Personally, I want more story content. That's why I play TOR. Warzones and operations are things I can get in virtually any MMO on the market right now. However, with the exception of The Secret World story is the one thing I can't get in any other MMO, at least not fully VO'd cinematic story.

No, not really. My "head canon" for my characters is a fair bit different than what ends up happening on screen, in many cases. For example, while my Sith may be less wantonly thuggish and "eevil" than many others, he is in no way "an agent of the Light" as Jaesa called him after I slaughtered everyone close to her, turned her Jedi Master to the Dark Side, and then killed him because I could... somehow I still ended up with light Jaesa simply because I had 500 more LS points than DS points. My Warrior does want to change the Empire from within, but he doesn't want to radically change the Empire's socio-political structure. He firmly belives that there is a time and place for Sith power struggles and maneuvering, but he also understands that the Sith need to put the good of the people of the Empire before their personal gain. Vette is an exceptionally useful creature, and while my character does experience some modicum of affection and perhaps even lust, she is still his property--albeit property granted a degree of autonomy. He removed her shock collar because the illusion of freedom made her more useful to him than forcing her to bear an obvious reminder of her servitude. She may be looked upon as a concubine but he would never take her as a wife and lose the ability to form an alliance with another powerful Sith family. He also would like to make sure to have legitimate Sith children, because he sees the continuance of the Sith as an important thing for the Empire. Quinn will be tortured to within an inch of his life, restored to relative health, frozen in carbonite, and thawed once in a while for more torment. When I get bored with that, I'll thaw him out, have him demoted to a non-com, and have him given a billet on some backwater like Hoth or Tatooine. That's as far as I've gotten with the story (Taris now), but Bioware's "your story" gimmick is just a marketing ploy.

If Bioware had chosen to design the companion system in such a way that the companion's game role could be chosen based on player desire, this would be a moot thread. Sadly, Bioware chose to make companion skills rigid and inflexible. I have a feeling that I will end up choosing to use the droid and simply pretend Quinn doesn't exist. I do wish BIoware had been more flexible with the roles allotted to companions. I like Pierce and Vette but I'm stuck with an annoying ponce like Quinn or an annoying ninny like the droid if I need a healer.

Considering the budget that TOR had compared to the MMOs you've chosen to highlight as competitors, TOR was a failure. It was a critical success but a general flop with fans. EAWare did not expect TOR to have under 1 million active subs at this point in its life. The sky isn't falling, but an asteroid did knock up a little dust. The sky will fall if f2p isn't successful enough by whatever metrics EAWare has decided. Lucas's licensing fees are pretty hefty compared to the other IPs discussed in the OP, too.

The game might survive. They need to focus on making MMO elements "best stuff" instead of focusing on alts via Legacy, because repeating the same world content 4 times per side is not fun. If they focus on expanding the existing story, repeatable content, alternative advancement for alts, and a robust end-game experience for both PvE and PvP players, I think they will survive. If they don't start doing some of this, I don't think that even f2p will give this game a long future.

DDO, LOTRO, STO, and AOC all released as subscription games, went f2p more than a year ago and are still alive and kicking. DDO and LOTRO are doing well enough that there are full expansions being released for both titles. STO has published 3 or 4 fairly major content updates since its F2P launch. Age of Conan seems to be in a holding pattern. SWG never had an f2p relaunch. EQ is an ancient game, and so is EQ2. If those games shut down in a year or two, it would be a surprise, but not a big one. COH was also an old game that went f2p. If they could get 7 years out of SWG, even after the mass exodus of players caused by CU and NGE, I think they can get another 3-4 out of TOR.

Dear developers, Please, whatever you do, please, please do not add the Ewok Festival of Love to TOR. Thanks, Me

I am okay with it. If legacy unlocks did not cost credits I would not be okay with it. However, when Bioware decided to make legacy something other than merely a reward for playing many characters I sort of stopped caring too much about Legacy. I'm probably unique, but I never felt like I had too many credits between running three crafting characters and gearing up companions. So, I didn't see a need for Legacy to also be a credit sink instead of simply a reward for playing the game. EDIT: Also... if you want to see Pay2Win, check out any of the text-based games available from Iron Realms (Achaea, Aetolia, Midkemia etc). You can actually pay for gear that is far better than what is available in game from simply playing. The Cartel Market is not Pay2Win.

I've been through DDO, LOTRO, STO, and AOC as they went through f2p transitions. With the exception of STO all of the games that went f2p have been more successful than if they remained subscription only. TOR seems to be using a three tier model very similar to Turbine's except that there is no permanent ownership of flashpoint unlocks or raid unlocks. That's one thing I really like about Turbine's model. I own access to enough content that I don't need to keep paying for it if I don't want to. There are times when I am busy enough that I don't have time to game enough for a sub to be worthwhile, and I can still go and run instances and skirmishes with friends without spending additional money. I do think BW is on the right track with the Cartel Market, but please take a hard look at STO's use of lockboxes and use it as a lesson in what not to do. I don't play STO very much anymore simply because of all the spam promoting lockboxes in game.

Communication has lessened since Stephen Reid was laid off and Joveth was hastily promoted to replace him or at least that's how it seems to someone who unsubbed in March and recently came back. Since Georg quit BW there has also been relatively little developer forum involvement. I didn't agree with most of the decisions Georg made about combat, but I liked the fact that he was at least willing to directly engage the community instead of going through a junior community rep for things like "We asked Developer XYZ about..."

I am not terribly concerned about the lack of Developer posts. I do miss hearing directly from Georg Zoeller. We don't seem to hear too much from whoever TOR's new lead community manager is, though. I remember one of the criticisms of Stephen Reid was that he rarely posted on the forums, but the new lead CM is probably even worse in that regard.

I don't know. In my guild and on Hyperspace Cannon (and now The Harbinger) rolling need on anything not explicitly designed for your current role and class has always been considered bad form, unless you ask first. In most of the groups I have been in, the Guardian would have either been kicked from the group or allowed to finish the current run and then ignored after. I don't know if Group Finder has led to a change in social norms for loot rolls, but what the Guardian did would have been considered as much of a transgression of norms as rolling need for companion gear.

TOR is pretty lightweight. TOR played fine on High with my GTS250 512MB. Granted, that was before they fixed the high resolution textures issue, so it was probably medium textures in reality. I have a Radeon 6950 2GB right now, and I play on Very High with good fps in Warzones. Drops only happen on fleet. You would be well-advised to upgrade your RAM to 6-8GB. 4.00GB is cutting it a bit low with Windows 7. You will get very good performance out of TOR with a Radeon 6850/6870 as well.

Persistent PvP that actually matters. Illum needs a complete re-design. Persistent PvE that actually matters. Illum needs a complete re-design. I want to see some actual direction for class story/companion content. FPs and raids are only going to appeal to a minority of the playerbase, just like having 8+ alts only appeals to a small number of people. A space game that's actually decent and worth playing. A complete crafting revamp.