The $9.99 a month for three month deal that Turbine has is excellent. I almost always keep a sub running for LOTRO even when I only play once or twice a month. If TOR did the same, I would probably be less inclined to think about whether TOR is a good value compared to other games available for the same price.

In general, I feel it is rude to need on drops that are not designed for your current class and role. This has been the prevailing sentiment on the servers and groups I have played on and with. Anyone can rip mode from oranges, so that has not been considered appropriate rationale in my experience. The Guardian should have asked before needing.

Right now? C+ To break it down a bit more... Class stories: A- With the exception of the Sith Inquisitor story, I have enjoyed all of the Empire stories and Republic stories I have played. World stories: C- The second and third time through a world can be tedious. I unsubscribed from the game after becoming disenchanted with the Sith Inquisitor story and had to wait several months before I could deal with the repetitiveness of the world arcs. PvE (Flashpoints/Dailies/etc): B I enjoy the PvE game for the most part, but it does become very repetitive as 50 approaches. There seems to be little direction or understanding of player wants/needs as it pertains to PvE content on Bioware's part. Crafting: D- Crafting isn't really very engaging. There are significant level gaps in schematics in many crafts leaving one with a choice to either wear looted/quest reward gear or orange gear instead. There's also little reason to craft versus acquiring mods via commendtions and tokens. Reverse engineering is too random. There is no sense of progression or accomplishment with crafting due to the very random nature of RE. PvP: A- PvP is pretty decent, at least in Warzones. I find myself using PvP to skip entire world arcs on my alts now that I've re-subbed. It's far, far more engaging than repeating the same quests again. I would enjoy a persistent PvP zone similar to SWG's Restuss; while I understand current WZs not being persistent, I feel that a persistent zone would help with the feeling that there's currently conflict between the Empire and the Republic. Taris and/or Balmorra would be perfect places for persistent PvP objectives. PvP is probably what will keep me subscribing after f2p, provided weekly passes are cheaper than a sub. Community: D- I am not rating the community of players itself but rather the Community Team. With both Sean and Stephen I felt like there was someone who was passionate about online gaming, Star Wars, TOR, and the players/customers/fans of Star Wars and Bioware. Since the restructuring and lay-offs on the community side, I do not feel that strong sense of leadership, passion, or direction. The current community team just doesn't seem to be that engaged with the community of players that is still left.

I can do three warzones in an hour to an hour and a half, depending on what warzones I end up getting sent into. Looks like I'll be keeping the sub or at least buying passes. Personally, I would pay for a pass that let me avoid ever getting sent to play Huttball.

Speeder Piloting at level 10. That's probably all I'll buy for a while. The legacy perks are too expensive to be terribly useful on brand new characters.

Radeon 6950 2GB. 1680x1050 resolution with High/Very High settings depending on my mood. Haven't had any issues.

It's funny... the only games I've worked on professionally were story-driven MUDS. Story has always been my main shtick in game design, and I've always held it to be of paramount importance. When I created a new area, I would get wrapped up in the back story and the look and feel. I figured most MUD players were of a similar mind. I would frequent areas, as a player, simply because I enjoyed the story or the area aesthetic (I do this with Korriban in TOR... love to go back there). I eventually learnt that for a large majority of players, the story was ancillary at best. The players enjoyed the story as they explored the area, but it was the mob fights, quests, and loot that kept them coming back to an area. TOR's team doesn't seem to have learnt this crucial lesson, yet. Yes, the TOR class stories are great. However, I can only do the planetary arcs so many times before they become old news. The class stories don't contain enough novel content to make repeating planetary arcs four times feel fresh each time. The things that keep me coming back to MMOs are the things that Schubert describes as not being TOR's "best stuff." I come back for loot, for rare appearances, and for the competitive aspect of having those things versus other players.

Bioware, unfortunately, chose to make skipping trash a viable option in TOR. I was way over level on my main character, so I never did many runs of Athiss or Mandalorian Raiders. I got tired of looking at EKG strips earlier this morning, so I decided to pop on and give group finder a whirl with a low-level alt. The group (without mentioning that they were going to do this) skipped most of the shyracks and several of the Temple Guardians in Athiss. It took more time to avoid the trash than it did to kill it. I don't know why Bioware chose to do this, but I do find myself very bored with an FP when groups decide to skip most of the fighting.

Pretty sure Karen Traviss ruined them.

Both Thanaton and Zash really need to be developed a bit more. See my spoiler'd content for more.

Doesn't make sense. I should get 30 days from the day my subscription expires.

I selected a 3 month subscription at the start, and I've been billed for it. I am enjoying the game so far, and I think Bioware is doing an okay job of listening to the community and implementing changes based on community feedback. End Game is currently fairly weak, but I expected that to be the case in a launch title. I would absolutely love to see much more character customization (like the ability to change the colour of crafted armour), and I have a feeling that the "bolted to the rails" feeling of TOR (from character creation on up) is the only thing that could make me reconsider remaining a long-term subscriber.

Making it available all the way until March doesn't exactly seem to exclusively reward those of us who were here at launch.

It will at least be locked. "We do not allow discussion of moderation..." It's the easiest way to prevent dissent. Bioware has been very heavy-handed compared to Turbine and even SOE. The forums aren't my game, so I'm not going to QQ too much.

Game balance. The developers didn't want the Neckbeard Brigade to say "Kay guyz, u haz biochem and rakata medpacks or U NO RAID!!! KK?" That was happening. As a responsible developer, Bioware took a look and said "Well, crap... we didn't anticipate that. Lets take a look at how we can prevent this from happening."

Yep. My main from EGA is still only level 44, very close to 45. I still have Belsavis, Voss, and Corellia to finish. On the Empire side, I haven't done Balmorra, or Quesh, and there are numerous bonus series I've not done. I still want to play a Dark Jedi Knight, too. I've got a three month sub set to charge on the 20th. That will give me enough time to see how the game is going to look from a new content/bug fix perspective. The SI story was a huge letdown after Act I (although Act III is a little better). However, I didn't go into this expecting EQII's endgame (or even WoW's) at launch.

They shouldn't have been so surprised that Inquisitor is a very popular class. They hyped the Inquisitor as the Palpatine/Darth Maul playstyle. I think they gave the story to one of their least experienced writers because they figured it would be less-played than SW and BH. I am a bit surprised that guild banks will take them until March, but I like the game well enough that it doesn't bother me.

Not being able to send mail to my cross-faction alts is a serious disincentive. One of the nice things about alts is that you can use your main to craft them nicer leveling gear... except you can't in TOR.

You can enable subtitles and spacebar through the voice acting if you read faster than the actor speaks. I tend to do that for side quests if I have been playing for a few hours and don't really care. However, unlike other MMOs the whole point of TOR is the story. There is absolutely no point to skipping it, at all. There is also no point in rushing to end-game in a newly launched MMO, because the end game is pretty anemic.

The other game I'm looking at is The Secret World. The skill-based level-less progression looks awesome.

To be fair, she went back to graduate school. That's a little different. They've said that there's one main writer for most class stories with other writers chipping in here and there. I'm not aware of their officially being one writer per act. However, I also don't know why they gave any appreciable part of that big of a story to someone with her qualifications or rather her lack thereof. The SI was supposed to be a fairly Machiavellian character according to developer interviews, which takes a bit of skill to write. I'd honestly be stunned if Drew Karpyshyn had much to do with the SI story... he has proven he knows how to write compelling Sith characters... if my character were anything like Darth Bane I wouldn't be whining about the quality of the story compared to that of the Jedi Knight, Bounty Hunter, and Sith Warrior.

I'm not sure you read this thread. Sith are about the acquisition of power to achieve their goals. Intimidation, manipulation, politics, murder, corruption, etc. There is almost none of that in the Sith Inquisitor story, and the story was billed as being "Palpatine inspired." It's not about how powerful each character is by the end but about what they do to get there in the first place. The SW actually plays the "Game of Sith" with Baras, and works via manipulation, cunning, and force to destroy Baras's power base and eventually to supplant Baras. The SI is portrayed as largely inept without the help of his companions. He doesn't get to corrupt his light-side "apprentice," he doesn't do any cunning or manipulative skulduggery in his quest for power. He goes and collects some artifacts. His master tries to kill him. He bests his master. Randomly, his master's former nemesis is given to him as an antagonist for act 2 and act 3. Thanaton doesn't really do much to inspire the SI to hate him or view him as a real nemesis. He spends the majority of act 2 and act 3 trying to fix the fact that he played Ghost Buster one too many times in Act 3, with Thanaton being an almost forgotten element for most of the story until the middle/end of Act 3. I would have loved to see Bioware treat TOR like it was going to be a game with multiple expansions... I didn't want to see my character on the Dark Council at the end of the base game, because there's not a whole lot for him to do after that... he's pretty much at the pinnacle of power.

Yep. I enjoy the class for its mechanics and available roles, but the story takes a serious nosedive after Act I. Sadly, they gave the class to a very junior writer with no previous publication history in the Star Wars universe, and it shows.

Hm. It's a tossup. Kira was good on my beta JK when it worked. I also enjoyed Jaesa for the completely crazy "Go Evil" trainwreck that is was. Ashara has been my least favorite.

The quality of the writing is the same as for any other form of media. I like to read well-written novels, comics, and news articles. I like to watch cinema with well-written plot and dialogue. I like to play video games with good story. TOR is hit or miss on that part. Most of the class stories are very good. I think the Sith Inquisitor story is about a 2/10 rating in comparison to the others. The world arcs are all very good. I've often felt like the world arcs (Tatooine and Alderaan in particular) spoke more to what my class was supposed to be about than my actual class story. However, there are other people who absolutely love the Inquisitor's story. Granted, bodice rippers are probably the height of these people's literary ambitions, but to each their own.