I had the same reaction to the male consular voice OP. I rerolled to a female sage. My main is a male Jedi Guardian. When 1.2 hits i'll make my female sage my wife. All is good.

Think it's relted to body type. I think i've seen some jedi without it. And if i recall they were a different body type than me. So ridiculous looking though.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, I think they know. Never heard them mention it though.

I kinda agree with you. But didn't Obi Wan admonish Anakin after he lost his saber in the speeder chase "This weapon is your life" or some such thing? Of course he probably meant that because anakin was aparently being trained as a more melee type of jedi.

Are there any plans to allow for reverse engineering of any armor piece in game (white, green blue etc..) to obtain an orange schematic of it so as to further facilitate the appearance customization that the orange gear system was intended for?

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I thought that the legacy XP bonus you can select for a particular area of play for alts wasn't coming until 1.3 or later. Could be wrong.

EDIT: Rumpyak was quoting deathstrike in my post above I'll defer to you, but I only have one question as a layperson. How is it that the developers of Rift managed to push out nearly daily patches? Is what you say set in stone for software or is it a function of the skill at hand, engine whatever? Yes, larger patches for Rift took longer, but they always seemed to push out bug fixes and even gameplay updates in small batches. I don't mean to disbelieve you, but experience with other developers seems to imply that what you say may not be true at all.

I agree. I'm not a software or game developer so i'm just expressing thoughts and I could be wrong. But, not only would I have liked the UI update to be its own separate earlier patch, detached from legacy, I would also think that separating huge updates into separate patches would allow easier bug tracking. I can only imagine the kind of nightmare that feedback and bug tracking will involve for a huge update as opposed to smaller updates. The more you release, the more complicated the web becomes of what screwed up this or that etc... Besides the fact that there are different elements that some are looking forward to that have to wait because of x,y and z feature not being ready. I really want that UI customization...I have to wait because the laundry list of legacy isn't ironed out yet. Or is the UI as fubarred as the rest of the update?

I really wish the UI would have been a separate release. It is one of the things i most want but because its tied to 1.2 i have to wait on all.the.other stuff.to be ready.

I hear ya. I have met some good people in wow and other games at random. It's just that that seems to be over for whatever reason, rarer. I have met a few in TOR that I have on my friends list after random meet ups for heroic quests while out questing solo. But, it seems much less frequent. Bad experiences I guess are contibuting to this shift. As a seperate point, I wish that mmo's would devise a way to have just one server (some do with instances), with the ability for anyone who plays the game to group with anyone else who plays the game by switching to their instance. Instead of these "server borders" we have. I know a bunch of people across multiple games but they are all spread across different servers. X guild is now on X server etc... That puts an archaic hamstring on gameplay. "What server are you on?". "Oh, i'm on X come on and reroll" etc.. We need one world. The idea of a "server" or "realm" is over. It's time to grow.

It does vary slightly from game to game. I'll admit that I have been guildless these days. But i've been in guilds over the years. For example, in Rift, you can sometimes hear crickets. In Lotro, even as a guildless player, the glff channel on alot of servers is filled with chat, not just LFG chat but helpful inviting chat. I suppose because that game attracts and supports a slightly more hardcore RP playerbase. But it is there and not something to be laughed at. I just sense that these games seem to be shifting from the PUG mindset to the guild/friends mindset more so than ever. Blame that on whatever you like. And that shrinks the typical mmo world. It's still very much there though. More friends since even in a guild there are still little cliques which can make the guild almost moot depending on how it's managed. The "public quest" system made popular by WAR and supposedly embraced by GW2 may be the step needed ion this genre. Just my thoughts.

You can level to cap solo in most mmo's. Wow, lotro, rift etc. I don't understand those that say tor is more SP than those. I suppose it may feel like that because of the VO, especially in class questlines. But, it can feel just as barren and SP-ish in any of those games at low level. You said that it felt SP at launch when servers were heavy, but then you say people want merges. How would merges help when you already acknowledged that high pops still means people don't group? My way of thinking is that it isn't that TOR is any less of an mmo than the others, it's that we are seeing a shift in how people like to play these games. Perhaps the times of people jumping into random groups for anything that is yelled out for are gone and people prefer their real life friends, family or groups they know better. That shrinks the world until you get into a group like that. EDIT: and that isn't TOR's fault, they are just here at the time when that might be happening. P.S. This is just about the grouping aspect. I still do believe that TOR is somewhat deficient in the atmosphere department because of various other factors which can make an mmo feel like a world or galaxy in this case. But, that's another thread.

That's not really an argument. Using that argument, you could also say "how can they build upon the giant spikes and blades?". Make even larger ones? Saying that you shouldn't use restraint because it would be hard to improve upon cuts both ways. Using your own argument, in a year and a half there will be armor with spikes and space helmets the likes of which we've never seen. Because, after all, how can you improve upon 1.2's spikes? make bigger ones? It's actualyl an argument for restraint at the beginning. Edit: What 1.2 looks like is more akin to what I would expect 10 years into the game and all ideas have exhausted and they get a little punchy. Not 3 months in. Edit 2: You're quote: "This is an mmo, armor aesthetics are part of the genre. Higher leveled characters with lots of experience with HM/NM ops need to be recognized somehow by just seeing them roaming around." You're opinion is what I consider wrong with the mindset of the genre. It's what has kept mmo's in the stale merry go round they've been in for 10 years.

I see alot of people talking about the Jedi Battlelord set. It seems to be highly sought after. I myself am seeking it. When a piece appears on the GTN, it is more expensive than others and disappears quickly. Also, the new legacy armors for the jedi will include a version of it, indicating that BW knows it's something people like. It has no spikes, no blades on the shoulders, no backpack and no space helmet. Should this not be an indicator of what people want for the class?

Also, I think that a dying system absolutely needs to be adopted. However you want to handle it. I know the devs are against it, but to my way of thinking it is necessary in any mmo now. Reason being, even if you come up with a stellar design pattern for an armor piece, people are going to want to add the final touch themselves with the colors of their choice. That isn't a bad thing.

I agree. In all honesty, and this could be my mind playing tricks on me, but I would have sworn that BW had mentioned that there would be an orange version of every piece of armor in the game. And that crafters would be the ones sought after to get them.

i'm also a big fan of dying systems in mmo's to further customize the gear designs we are given.

That's the one part of the cosmetic system I didn't like. I want to look how I choose regardless of whether i'm pvp-ing or pve-ing. I personally think that the need to see the actual gear of the player in pvp is overblown. I understand the arguments though. Also, the mod system bascially throws that out the window doesn't it? I mean, orange gear by default means that you have no idea what mods are installed at a glance, so the devs can't really use that as an argument against a cosmetic paper doll, as it ignores the fact that swtor's orange gear already eliminates the possibility to gauge power from looks.

I suppose what i'm getting at is that I don't think that devising new and weird geometry to add to gear is the only way to make things look different or even "high level" unique. As for your robe example, even a robe can have multiple variations using texture, color and pattern to be made to look remarkably different from one another. Rather than adding shoulder blades etc... And yet, they are all still robes. I think lotro does a decent job in proving this as well as some of the great pics linked to in this thread. Also, to keep the more mechanical looking designs for the classes where it would fit better. I guess i'm just thinking that it would be better to stop relying so much on adding shapes as the only way to visually differentiate things. This isn't to say that considering new, interesting shapes for shoulders, head etc (especially for the BH where intersting helmets would definitely fit in) should be thrown out the window. Just that I don't think it should be the focus for all classes. And where it is considered, try to do so with a bit more restraint. Again, this doesn't apply to social gear, that would be acceptable to have an elaborate, over the top theme. Just my opinion though.

I agree. I had played lotro for years. My favorite piece is still one of the hooded cloaks from I believe Forochel rep. I think, been a while. It had a fur like texture and interesting pattern.

My main opinion is that I have a hard time understanding the penchant that alot of mmo artists have for over the top shoulders. As has been said, I think with the possible exception of certain social costumes, that should be obviously out of place in this game. Yeah, wow does it, but that doesn't mean it fits here. I see some of the gear and i'm almost ok with it until I see some of the things that are strapped to shoulders and even the back. My suggestion for making armor unique would be to perhaps focus more on making unique textures and colors/patterns, rather than trying to come up with weird new geometry to strap to heads and shoulders.

It is a good start. Nikki and Heather are great. Just a bit of audio adjustment on Nikki and you're good to go. For the future, let's try to get Taugrim as a pvp guest, maybe some willing players in other areas such as ops/crafting/solo too. And some class specialization segments as well. Too bad Bryan isn't into it, he always adds that certain something. Devs would be good too, but they seem to be a bit too tight for that sort of thing, so I won't hold my breath. Keep it up and I hope the enthusiasm for TOR is as prevalent in this show as the enthusiasm for STO is in that show. About all for now.

Yes, I too believe they need to work out the audio with Nikki. She's very soft spoken apparently. I have no doubts they will. Looking forward to seeing the show evolve. Hopefully with some dev guests as they do with their Star Trek Online show STOked. Not that they ever really say too much without the typical vagueness that i suppose is neccessary. Hopefully they'll also have segments with players who are more into various aspects, pvp, operations etc...

I guess Bioware disagrees given the cost of pre 1.2 items. Apparently there are gajillions of credits floating around the game that need to be drained.