western "hardcore" players have spoiled far too many potentially good MMO's for the casual majority and I sincerely hope that Bioware have the sense to pay them all the credence they deserve, viz a viz, not much. I'm a casual player now, but I haven't always been, I was a hardcore player, I have taken part in proper gaming leagues and played for cash and I even spent a few years as a dev, and I still think that. Thanks to Wow (which i despise for costing me my last dev job, and will never play so freely admit my knowledge of is limited) the MMO market in the west has changed and it's stopped being a niche thing for RPG'ers with pc's and internet connections and become the gaming equivalent of a full on social experience like Facebook. People want to meet up with friends, chat, have a laugh together from the comfort of their own homes these days, and the MMO experience is an acceptable means to that end. The hard core days of power levelling and grinding are over, and we are on our way to a time when people want achievable goals without requiring the power gamer attention spans found back in the early days of Legend of Mir or SWG where we had to stand around town "practicing" skills for 6 days straight in order to level them up. It's not about the grind any more, and whilst most companies will try to cater to the "hardcore" clique in some way, its not about you any more, its about the socialites and community builders who want to be able to see all of what is on offer together without dedicating significant amounts of their time to that end. Things change, and the day of the hard core powergrinder - in the west at least - are over, and popular IP's like star wars will be written for the larger majority of casuals than the "elite", pvp will be dumbed down, ranking systems ignored and the benefits of spending 4 times the amount of time on something will be that you simply level up 4 times faster and amass a little extra loot. Personally I'm glad of the change. The social aspect of any game is what I love the most, and I was only ever really a stats hound in Eve where my main focus was on racing and research. It makes the game accessible to more people and prevents the kind of trouble that happens when an in game economy gets blown right out of reach of the majority of players simply because of the extra cash hardcore players have access to. I'm sorry it's not to your liking, but such is the way of it. Maybe in time things will swing around in your favour again as the general gaming population matures and moves towards a more competitive mindset. Until then you either have to keep up, bite your tongue and settle for the kind of unofficial pvp ranking system where you know that you can wipe the floor with one guy, but his best mate will flatten you, or you'll have to move on to playing eastern MMO's where the focus is almost entirely on the competitive/hardcore style of play - and where in most cases, you'll spend most of your life waiting to respawn after being completely pwned by gamers in a culture that would think of you as a casual player.

ive given up on believing the queue estimates on the client now.... as a rule of thumb I generally assume its moving at a rate of 10 ppl a minute, rounded up to the next hundred people and go from there.... mostly it seems to be pretty close and that I'm coming back to the PC with 2 -3 mins to go till i get in.

The rebels aren't so cut and dry as they appear to be honest. If you play as an Imp for any real period of time, you begin to notice that problem "a" was incited by the rebels, or troops/resources/etc transported to or through a neutral zone against the terms of the treaties they themselves insisted upon, etc etc, There isn't so much to choose between the two factions as either side might believe really: The rebels want a utopean utilitarian society based upon the idea that all people should give up some freedoms for the greater good of the community, in a nice caring sharing way where every one helps everyone else and the community on the whole moves as fast as its slowest member. The Empire on the other hand, want a utopean utilitarian society based upon the idea that some people should give up some freedoms for the greater good of the community, in a "let's get realistic, we're dealing with people here" way that encourages competition and growth either through strength, political connections or smarts, where people get as far ahead as they want to without having to be concerned about those who can't keep up. Tbh if you want to really bring it down to a really over simplified level, its communists (rebels) versus capitalists (empire)... and lets be perfectly honest here, humans just don't do communism well, we're too egocentric, and we always want more than what we have. Granted the empire are portrayed as some kind of evil Orwellian dictatorship, but to be honest, you only have to walk around London or some other major western city to see that we aren't far off already, except in name and decor. Cameras on every street, violence and gangs, police on the take or practically getting away with murder and invasion of civil liberties in the name of the "law" while the politicians push their armies around in the hunt for more oi... I mean terrorists... Even under those conditions most of us turn out as reasonably well balanced compassionate individuals, but in the same context we probably look quite evil and unethical to other cultures.

I'm playing Sith - mostly because I feel like being able to say "you know what, you're useless, you deserve to die, eat lightning pew pew" but also because as "evil" as they are, the imperials do have some 'good' ideas. War is good for people, its a sorry truth, but you don't have to do much thinking to realise that simple inexorable fact. The pursuit of the next big gun helps technology move on at a crazy pace. Medicine, particularly medicine related to genetics, was advanced a long way during the last world war. Even silly products, like superglue, were developed first, to stick soldiers back together. Moving beyond that, the ideals the imperials have aren't that far off what most peoples inner monologue would tell them anyway. How many times have you walked down the street and seen a group of chavs, insolent kids or something and said to yourself "someone needs to sort them out" The imperials are an example of what happens to a capitalist society with the shackles of morality removed. Disagree with paying taxes to fund the unemployed or unemployable? Why not round them up and "dispose of them", force them into indentured servitude or test stuff on them instead.. Don't like sub culture "x"? Outlaw it, kill them all or make them conform. etc etc. At the ground roots, as any imperial player can tell you, most of the imperials (as represented by the in game NPC's) are pretty normal average Joe's, like the rest of us. They have normal needs and desires, and most seem to have a reasonable ethical stand point. What's interesting is seeing how their reactions are coloured by the fact that they belong to a larger culture that permits or turns a blind eye to actions that even they might personnally consider a little extreme. They don't like to admit that they'd like some kind of lethal revenge on those evil smugglers from sector 7G, but hey if you want to go stab them all in the face while you retrieve those battle plans for me, my lord, I don't really mind... The imperials are probably more like us than we ever care to admit, and anthropologically speaking, its fascinating seeing how we've been reflected in them. Needless to say, I'm loving being an imperial for a change and kudos to Bioware for making them so believable.