I had this nifty response worded up then I noticed your name. The short version is, it was fun, and it could be continually fun, as long as a few tweaks are made as outlined in my OP.

Second page already? Hard to find something positive when it's overshadowed by the QQ I guess.

Started off a normal day. Logged in to try and trudge through my Ilum daily while queing up for warzones. I finally managed to get to Ilum and, per normal, the Imps were outside our base and we were trying to cozy on by picking off people where we could. They outnumbered us by 10-15 people. Die, rez, die, rez - such a vicious cycle. It was about 5 minutes later I realized - *** am I doing? I'm a f'ing tank. So I tell my group, "form up on me I'm going in." What happens? I charge into the thick of things and run directly to their back lines and lay down an awe to cc their healers followed with an AoE taunt and a guardian leap back to my team to recharge before going back in. Eventually we stand victorious and push to the central node where they regroup and, yet again, we remain victorious. Fast forward 10 minutes and there are at least 2x our numbers which forces us back into a pigeon holed base like normal. In that brief 20 minute period battles were won, lightsabers and blaster bolts flew, and people were dying left and right and it occured to me that... I was... having fun! Wait, what? This can't be! I used to think 30 kills per day would be rough but if a few things are changed and massive battles are able to be fought on a regular basis then it's not longer a grind - it's fun! These, in my opinion, are the largest issues. Figure out the performance issues and fix them - this is the #1 issue with Ilum. Figure out a way to even the teams or give the underdogs some sort of incentive. This could be a bolster a la WAR, a cap on the player size similar to Tol Barad, or even some sort of bonus to the underdogs. Thanks Bioware for giving us this great game of this great genre. You're onto something special and with your extremely quick and efficient bug fixes I'm 100% confident that you will continue to deliver.

Yea, I plan to get DPS only and pick up the defense stuff if I get duplicates so I can use it in PvE.

Things are looking up. Managed to get my pants, boots, earpiece and relic today. (I actually got boots twice so I bought both sets). Was a lucky day for me and PvP is going much smoother.

I actually like Voidstar because I can spam my no-focus aoe slow and do a really good job with all my disables of preventing them from moving on. I decided to swap to a Soresu/Focus build for now to try it out so I can do the hit&run bomb technique. Thanks again for the advice. Glad I posted here and not the PvP forum because it's generally filled with "LOL QQ MOAR NOOB."

Interesting. Any idea how many commendations can be gotten?

Illum isn't really an option. I was there for two hours last night and got 5 kills. Thanks for the rest of the advice, though. It didn't help that I was at 1k/1k commendations with a bag in my storage and didn't get any gear from it.

Guess I was having bad luck. Faced off against a group of "regular" people and ended up having a ton of protection and some medals. It'll be slow but someday I'll get geared.

What's the best way to help out the team and be of use. I'm sitting at 11,250 HP with 0 expertise and get utterly f---ing decimated in seconds. I was thinking, hey, I'll just bump my survivability up enough to keep guard/taunt up and protect healers. Wrong... I died from guard damage alone for the first time. So, how the hell do I get the gear? I went from being in the top of the damage and top of protection to just getting **** on in seconds. 10-49 was so much fun. Do I need to just pray for a good group to be in?

Being an adult is way more fun than being a child. I fail to see your point.

It's been good for both the powertech and guardian. So that's a least two times.

The good news is the STORY is good and Im' an altaholic. Two 50's down, 6 to go.

It's a pity it's not more skill based and is time based instead. So yes, I got to endgame PvP and immediately stopped having fun.

Feed me. Guarding a node alt-tabbed is FUN! On a sidenote - I actually died purely from guard damage in about 10 seconds. Now that was awesome.

I'm jelly bro.

We won > 75% of the warzones on the way to 50. Haven't won one since. Stoooopid Republic!

How is it that warzones from 10-49 are so f'in fun and the second I get into a 50 one it makes me want to start my scoundrel. I was a 50 powertech and swapped over to Republic. Currently Valor rank 30 from PvPing up and one 50 warzone made me want to /wrist myself. Yes, I'm QQ'ing.

It's just as much luck as getting a PvE drop. I don't see why people have such an issue with it.

You're doing it wrong.

Get someone that can interrupt (any melee) and throw them on a healer. Net gain -1 DPS -1 Healer in the team fight. Guess whose more important? Let your team clean up the rest. If another healer is cross healing, even better, you just took two out for a bit.

I would assume the only ones in the game - PvP ones.

I did the Bounty Hunter story (sucked) and the Jedi Knight story is far superior. I've been watching the Trooper story as my friend does it and it's very good. He was, however, an operative before and their story is hands down the best.

Thanks for your helpful insight and intelligent post. I will take your suggestions to heart. Why don't you explain it to us all?

Orange PvP gear of some sort would work just fine for me.