Some of these ideas are humorously rediculous. However, they may be just the thing to break up the gear grinding, give us something fun and casual to do (that anyone can compete in, regardless of level or gear), and encourage people to get off the fleets and back into the rest of the galaxy.

A lot of what has been said in this post is worth the dev's consideration. The game has been made and some things are too difficult to impliment at this point. However, I like the idea of implimenting horizontal scaling into the endgame. Since there is a lot of scaled gear out right now it may be best to leave it alone so as not to upset the people who slaved away to get it. But let's not add any additional tiers. Starting now, have the top tier gear be the standard of highest achievable stats. Any new gear introduced in future content will be cosmetic or will have new set bonuses (but not higher stats). An exception to this should be pvp which should follow horizontal scaling to the letter. No more gear superiority in pvp, matches should be won with skill and tactics, not statistics and luck. Make pvp rewards cosmetic and achievement based. In conclusion, we are not rats in a B.F. Skinner box. We shouldn't need a dangling reward (new tier gear) to play a game. We should want to play the game because it is fun, 'nuff said.

Need more people talking about this. Time for a friendly bump

Gotta say, I'm liking the sound of this idea. My beef with pvp in this game (and really most everything about mmos) is that nothing you do matters. PVP as you present it could have meaning. Right now, the in game motivator to do anything in the endgame is to get better gear so you you don't get stomped in whatever it is you are doing. That's it, and it's pathetic. I find myself thinking about making another alt each time I get to lvl 50 because the end game stinks, like you said. Once the story is over meaning is once again lost and the game is reduced to gear grinding. So once again I am loving this idea of yours. In order to facilitate its implimentation I'd recommend that this game make pvp more inviting to encourage more people to participate. To do this I feel it is necessary to remove the expertise stat from the game and equalize pvp and pve gear. That way there is no unbreachable gap between those who want to help the war effort but don't have the fancy gear and the hardcore pvp players. If this is not addressed the war hero geared players will just stomp everyone out of those worlds who isn't "equipped" to match them and the war effort will be controled by them and them alone. World pvp is great but only if everyone has a fighting chance. I posted this on someone else's idea that had some semblance to yours http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=533922&page=7 (see here for the full story): To encourage participation there could be something indicating that "imperials are advancing" if only imperial players are queued (INCERT:For your idea it would indicate that one of the pvp worlds is being taken over) and there is nobody for them to fight. That would mean that the republic players are needed for the war effort in order to stop the imperal advance. Note how the need in this case is real, and gives players a reason to fight, instead of just pvping for the sake of getting better gear. Players who don't want to be part of it don't have to be, perhaps pve stats could be included as well to a lesser extent. So those empire or rebublic npc troops everyone is slaughtering might count for something too (equal level or higher npc's only of course, no butchering low level worlds to make the war swing in your favor). Just some of my thoughts, hope they help.

RAVM has a point with the night/day thing, and if it is to be done I'd want it done correctly. The weather effects on the other hand are definitely something I want to see. Honestly, Tattooine and Hoth are so tame it's hard to see them as the dangerous planets they were in the movies. Perhaps they could make that (currently pointless) cold weather pack you get on Hoth reusable and necessary for when the snowstorms come at you. I'd also like to chime in and request some better background music. This game is far too silent. KOTOR wasn't like this and niether were the movies. The music in those helped to give excitement/wonder/interest etc, i.e. LIFE to the worlds. There is good music in SWTOR but I only hear it in the cutscenes and story moments, bring some life to the worlds.

For those who played kotor: Do you remember Manaan? Manaan was an intriguing part of kotor to me for many reasons but I want to address the gameplay aspect of it. There was much less fighting on Manaan due to its neutrality in the war and the strict laws keeping the republic/sith conflict offworld. This resulted in a lot of non-combat oriented objectives that brought new ways of playing to the game. Most notably was the time where you were assigned as an arbiter (lawyer-detective) in a murder case: During that case I didn't kill a single enemy, but nevertheless, I had fun. Solving that murder case was exciting, interesting, and was story driven with plot twists and suprises and had the potential of ending very badly if you did a poor job in gathering evidence or presenting it before the court. Could not something like this be implimented in SWTOR? I think something like this could shake us up out of the grind and gear nabbing that occupies much of the late-game content and could give us something fresh and new to experience.

Darth_Sidewinder, you just gave me a funny idea: If mon calimari are ever implimented as a playable race, their social ability should be

I fail to see how what you say presents a conflict to what I said, so let me give an example to demonstrate: A rifle with cunning stat is being rolled for. In the party there is a jedi, a trooper, and two smugglers (one a gunslinger and the other a scoundrel). The trooper and the scoundrel can equip the rifle whereas the others cannot so the other two are not permitted to need it. Yet because the rifle has cunning (and not aim) as it's primary stat, only the scoundrel will have the option to select need. Should the scoundrel decide he/she does not need the new rifle and selects greed then the item will be rolled for as normal and the item bound to legacy for a party member to send to an alt if he/she wants to. I don't see any circumstance in which this would this deminish the quality of life for a player. As things stand now, this scenario would only give someone a worthless piece of junk to sell for spare credits. But if Bind to legacy replaced bind on pickup then the item in question has purpose again and can be sent to an aspiring alt.

These are great ideas for a more immersive environment. A lot of people are going to go great lengths to avoid these areas so maybe there could be some goodies hidden away for those daring enough to explore. And the madness of the nightmare lands sounds like potential for a world event similar to the rakghoul plague.

I had the same issue, made some bracers for an alt and found they were bind on pickup and got stuck with them. I would argue that limiting these items to the crafters themselves is NOT rewarding, IT'S restricting. Let me repeat that: I, as a crafter, feel restricted by this policy. If you want to reward me for leveling up my crafting let me share my skill and profit from it. It's not like I can craft a whole rakata set, so there's still going to be the need to run the HM fp and ops if you want the rest of the rakata gear anyway. So frankly I'd like for these to be bind on equip so I could actually make some money selling them on the GTN. However, if that won't happen then bind to legacy as suggested by the OP is good enough for me and will reward players for having a variety of crafters in their legacy.

This would definitely cut down on the need to social run Black Talon and Esseles. Is this what the game developers wanted for players when they came up with social points? Spacebarring through the fully-voice acted cutscenes just to speed up the process? The social points should come naturally as we group up through the game and if normal grouping isn't enough then a change is needed. Sharing social points accross legacy as suggested would be a wonderful way to fix this.

I support this. It's a reasonable request. Only potential drawback would be people selecting need for items they want for their alts. Since items are so class specific I'd also recommend making the need option available ONLY if the item in question is meant for your class. This would fix the issue while giving priority for characters who are actually participating in the loot roll.

I like the idea of having a way to change your character's voice in order to make that character your own and to distinguish him/her from other players with the same class and gender. However, hiring new voice actors to make the alternate voices would be expensive. So an idea I had would be to have a simple voice alteration application in character creation where you'd be able to make minor changes to the voice tone (nothing crazy here, I don't want to see someone sounding like a chipmunk). This way you'd be able to lighten the voice if you feel it doesn't sound right for your character's unique appearance, or deepen it further if you are so inclined.

I agree with you on the point that endgame in SWTOR is too much of a drag with very little variety. SWTOR should be applauded for a great and fun journey up to level 50. But sadly post level 50 content loses out for me because of that "grind" feel. I have 3 level 50 characters who I rarely play as anymore because I get bored with the endgame content after running it so many times. So I am in support of something along the lines you mentioned being implimented into the endgame. Most of what you mentioned is pvp, which not everybody is interested in even though you and I are. They will need something non-pvp to keep them coming back to the game as well. Pazaak would be a great addition and open space combat seems like it could be a tough add at this point but would be nice as well. Something fun though, that wouldn't require dangling a reward (new gear) over their heads for them to be interested in.

I agree that having smugglers and bounty hunters as neutral would be a fun idea. Although, as others have pointed out, the storylines have already been written and it's too late to impliment this into the game now. However, I may have an idea of getting around that. Earlier I was thinking of the possibility of a third faction based on the large-scale criminal cartels we come across in the star wars universe with a space dock in Hutt space. Each class would be tied to republic or empire like they are now, but would have the opportunity at some point to journey to the "fleet" for the lack of a better word and join up there. Naturally, smugglers and bounty hunters would be the most appropriate classes to go there, but in truth, any class can be tempted to betray their cause for a promise of wealth. Renegade sith and jedi along with double agents and corrupt military officers could now join the smugglers and bounty hunters in the new faction. All hush hush of course so that the decision to profiteer won't interfer with the stories already in place. Most classes have at least one crew member who'd support shady business and looking out for yourself and could go with you to the criminal "fleet": Kaliyo (agent), Vette (warrior) Andronikos (Inq), Tanno Vik (trooper) are some examples I've come acrossed. This may be a difficult addition to the game since it would require a new "fleet" area and lots of missions to go with the new neutral faction. But it would open up the game for numerous posibilities in pvp, pve, and even rp.