The best PvP vs PvE gear system I've seen was DCUO oddly enough - PvP gear was amazing for PvP but junk for PvE, and vice versa. This was done with one simple difference between the gear: Defense was PvE defense, Toughness was PvP defense. Wear one in the wrong situation and prepare to die very fast. Simple yet elegant (and highly possible with this expertise stat I assume). Makes me sad that PvP gear is be-all end-all in gear, particularly since the PvP system is not completely hammered-out. I'd rather avoid it entirely until it's better (and perhaps continue avoiding it after that). I personally prefer a PvP server and leaving my PvP to open world encounters which I find more immersive

YOU CAN'T!? Darn... This ruins... all of my plans... back to the drawing board, Pinky

/signed, brilliant idea Love how it flows really well with BW's concept of this family tree with all your characters (I hate the word toons, where did that stupid thing come from anyway?). Could even cost legacy points, or whatever we'll get from legacy levels. Edit: related to "toon": http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=toon love the first 3 definitions as they totally fit.

QFT, This is the point I've been trying to get across but it seems that if you don't like crafting it's impossible to comprehend. This is how the economy works - one person does something another doesn't want to do, so that other person pays them for the product - great success!

EDIT 2: I really need a TLDR in here as this post is rather large: You seem to think BoP is the only way to create incentive to level crafting, and I'm just here to tell you - it's not. I've played games without BoP and plenty of people saw the incentive to craft - selling said items for profit. BoP is lazy and senseless. Not going to quote your post as it's quite massive (and I'm still catching up with all the posts since I went away for a while there) but wanted to address one of the central points I was reading in the first bit. You seem to think that the time sunk into crafting to craft your own BoP items is reason for them to be BoP. The cost of such items sold by crafters if these items were not BoP, though, would be high enough to assuage the time sunk into being able to craft the item. You seem to think binding is the only way to make crafted items take time to get, though I can attest to the fact that gathering the currency to purchase a deservedly high priced items (due to the cost/rarity of materials used in the recipe) can also be quite time consuming. Then, in 3 weeks when a new item gets added you have to buy the new item while the crafters just have to hunt the schematic. I honestly feel as though anyone who is only crafting because there's a BoP item they want, if put n the scenario where they can purchase the item off of the GTN instead, they may just do that. At the same time, everyone gets 3 crew skills and they're relatively low maintenance and easy to max out, so perhaps they have 3 gather skills and are supplying the materials for the craft. Alternatively, as you suggest they could abandon the crafting system altogether for some reason, and they would still have to spend the time to earn the currency to pay the crafter a reasonable sum of credits. If these items are truly a huge cost to the crafter, the price will reflect that. All I'm saying, is your argument relies on the idea that if items were not BoP, then nobody would craft because they don't have to - you fail to see that the incentive becomes that you can sell these items to the people who chose to ignore the craft, and those ignoring the craft adopt the credit cost of the items they want that crafters have made. This all sets up a thriving economy. If I want to craft for profit rather than do missions for raw credits, that should be an option. If another player hates crafting, and wants to just do dailies and gain credits and then buy the items I craft, well that's basic microeconomics. EDIT: I'm not talking about crafting as it is now, I'm explaining that if crafted BoP items were BoE, and people neglected crafting and instead purchased those items, your argument that BioWare would lose player playtime is not the case - this playtime is now instead of crafting, earning the credits to purchase said crafts. Your failure to see that BoP is not the only driving mechanism to get people to craft does not mean I am wrong, it means you can't see why else anyone would craft. I'm telling you I've always enjoyed the concept in games and how it can effect the game economy, and I know many other MMO players who feel the same way. BoP is just a lazy mechanic that I believe actually results in a lower overall playtime per item - as the prices these items would be would require quite a bit of credits to purchase them from the crafters. I can attest to this as I've played MMO's that use this concept rather than the binding concept, and the crafting markets were quite cut-throat and lucrative. You claim I am wrong because of basic Human Psychology, but that same concept is what causes crafters who are crafting to sell to others to get into it in the first place. Crafting should be a method of earning credits, rather than a method of obtaining gear only for yourself. It seems you do not like crafting (just a general feeling I get from the fact that you think if BoP were removed nobody would craft - obviously you find it boring). I enjoy crafting and prefer it as a method of currency generation. Others who do not feel the same way and maybe hate crafting, should be able to ignore it completely and generate currency in some other way. I think the real problem is that they're essentially forcing everyone to craft to get something useful (whether its the synth/armortech waist/bracers or biochem stuff or whatever floats your boat). If instead the people who want to craft could craft for themselves and others (for profit) and those who don't want to craft could purchase the items they'd be missing out on, we'd all be happier about it and have a more well-developed economy. BoP is just a lazy way of forcing crafting down everyone's throats.

Sorry, I guess I chose a poor example lol. I'm more or less saying just try out some of the lower level ones - I, for instance, just left Tatooine on my newest character at level 32, 4 levels above the listed cap. I think you're just best off crafting some random ones and seeing what sells best. Unfortunately I've been doing this somewhat randomly so far and not keeping track (I can only track one thing or I'll go crazy, and I chose to track my slicing missions). I'm almost positive that if you look at the GTN at Item Modifications you'll see a severe lack of them for certain levels, and could potentially fill in that gap. Don't forget to go above base price, either

The BoP items actually restrict the economy. I'm fine with binding, but BoP takes crafting out of the economy for the levels it should be most rewarding and useful. Don't be so sure BioWare wants everyone to craft - it takes up barely any extra time if you do it while leveling, whereas the people spending credits on the crafted products actually end up broke and need to spend extra time making those credits back. All-in-all, leveling a craft to 400 does not take much time at all, so I don't see this BoP adding much playtime onto players for BioWare. That being said, I think the system is fine in terms of the time it takes to get purple quality schematics is essentially the difference between a dedicated crafter and a casual crafter. Most players I'm sure will end up at least as casual crafters which you may be right, is exactly what BioWare is looking for. I believe they're also looking for as they have been quoted as saying many times before, those crafters that are widely known as great or whatever they're going for, and I think the upgraded schematics is their avenue of doing that. The only problem is all of this is thrown out the window at/near max level and that "epic" crafter is now silly and the products that are the most beneficial cannot be shared (for profit) with other players. Perhaps we'll just have to disagree - if you think to be able to use certain items from a certain craft you need to craft them yourself as it entices players to level a craft, and I think that particular mechanic is unnecessarily restrictive to the economy and craft/gear choices then we just simply have a difference of opinion. PS: I don't appreciate being called wrong myself, so instead I'll just call you misinformed. Maybe I am in the minority for not coming from WoW but hey, I was playing a well developed MMO before it came out and don't consider everything blizzard did to be end all be all of MMO design.

You're doing it wrong. I'm Cybertech so I use all orange and upgrade mods/armoring whenever I level into them. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the GTN hoping I could find at least blue quality up to level Item Modifications for my 2 blasters, pants, shirt, helmet, and gloves, as well as pants, helmet, shirt, rifle for my companion. This all totals to 3 color crystals, 10 enhancements, and 3 barrels that nobody posts on the GTN so I don't buy them. I cannot be alone in wanting this. I do this every time I leave a planet. That's, level 10-11, level 16-18... you get the point. Start at the leaving requirement for Hoth and work your way down, only getting up to blue quality. Start with only one color per level range as most might not care about color so much as something to put in their blaster/saber.

I agree with this. Coming from a game where getting a craft max actually meant something. By the time I left, the crafting system had all but been replaced by another one, but for the majority of the game getting a craft to max level took an insane amount of currency and time, and the items crafted actually did wonders for almost every class - and could be sold thus making a thriving economy. I hate to see how simple it is to get crafting maxed in this game, and the BoP items are just silly. In fact, I find binding to be a rather lame concept in the long run. In fact, coming from a game where most items used in leveling don't come from NPC's but come from crafts that were likely crafted years ago and resold time after time I think it's better in the long-run to have crafted items play a bigger role in the game rather than have an enormous abundance of items that you can get from any quest or any npc hurts the economy and makes leveling fairly easymode. I don't know about other games, but I just find this concept of if you just level and complete quests while you do so you end up rich by lvl 50 to be quite a strange design choice. This coupled with the fact that going to the fleet to get to the GTN is somewhat of a total pain since it's usually 4 loading screens. Crafting should be a little more difficult to max, and more profitable for those that craft exceptional items. I don't think this is currently possible since crafted items are more of a slight boost than anything else, and all replaceable none to soon - Cybertech gets new armoring schematics every 2 levels which seems a bit overkill, and makes purple quality items somewhat silly to use until maybe level 40 or so. The level seperation of earrings seems a bit better as you'll use them a little longer. Last note: I despise the concept of the best gear being gotten from PvP - I've always liked the method I had first which was simply you had a crafted item (that could be slightly better than normal if you had a rare critical craft) that cost quite a bit of currency to make, which is then made useable by performing some feat or quest. I'm not saying they should do that here (though they are to a degree in that you get the schematics by doing something rather grand). All I'm saying is I feel as though PvP rewards should not be the best gear for everything and it's quite sad that crafted equipment is generally useless from what I gather. Just seems odd that the whole game you can level up through the storyline getting gear from crafts/GTN/commendations/vendors, then all of a sudden none of those sources are where you should get gear from and now it's PvP. /endrant

I chose republic myself, and personally don't like the concept of working with the empire at all. I was a villain in DCUO so it's not that I don't like being evil, I just want to be evil for the republic. That being said, if I'm a jedi that becomes evil clearly I've abandoned the code and would seek out the knowledge of shooting lightning from my fingertips. Though I'm sure this would make balancing tough. Also, as for the guy commenting about pebbles -I doubt they feel like pebbles when they've been buffed 3x and crit % increased by 60% and they heal me.

Greedo was obviously < 30% HP and Han used his execution move which doesn't require cover

Patch notes today: Will be logging in shortly, hopefully this fixes it at least somewhat. Sounds like progress nonetheless.

This actually seems quite brilliant as I think most people realize they wish they chose the other AC before they reach max level. Edit: I was thinking on this, and I feel like what people want to avoid is someone being able to switch just for a fight or a different activity at level cap, which should be avoided. The cost of switching should be enough to dissuade that - perhaps an experience penalty?

Solution to biochem: rebuff reusable medpacks but... they use the white/green versions as "ammo", the purple is just buffing the base medpack that actually gets consumed. This would hopefully take out a bit of the argument for sticking with biochem just because it saves you the most credits.

Wow, why do people expect immediate bug fixing after patches? This is not that easy as the idea is not to revert to the old patch, but to fix the current one. Coupled with the fact that they don't want to have to re-patch again they really try to do it right the second time... This is not abnormal in my experience. I've played multiple mmo's before with far greater downtime and multiple days of bugfixing after a patch. Be glad that BW actually does this fast and ON SCHEDULE WITH WHAT THEY SAY. If anyone here has ever played FFXI they'll know exactly what I mean...

Definitely agree with the idea that if this is not fixed SW:TOR will bleed subs in a few months (If not sooner). This issue is a very odd one I've found. Some PvE content I seem to have no ability delay, able to kite kill mobs with only 10m range abilities, stun when I hit my stuns. Some other PvE content, though, I'll end up using the CC break move or a stun that ends up being wasted. One thing this becomes very evident on is the ability Tumult, which requires an enemy to be stunned to use. The ability delay combined with slight general lag will cause the ability to not get used even though the target is showing the stunned animation. PvP is unplayable except for the one with the 3 turrets since the other two are so compact that lag, character responsiveness, and fps drop to near nothing. As a side-note; character responsiveness is particularly frustrating for the AC I've chosen- Jedi Shadow. This is due to the fact that using one ability gives a buff that buffs the next one... so you can't quite spam abilities as they're not nearly as effective without the buffs. Perhaps some of the nay-sayers are just playing AC's that allow them to not notice/be bothered by the character responsiveness, but personally I find this issue beyond frustrating when it gets bad (I'd say bad is about a 0.4 or 0.5 delay). EDIT: I'm sorry but this is simply not the case. I don't come from WoW myself so I can't attest to that but even Diablo 2 has better ability delay. Aside from intermittent FPS issues you're right, the game does run smoothly... It's just the connection to the server that is slow. Graphical effects have NO impact on server delay/lag

Second this almost entirely. Tharan seems to be the only useful companion unfortunately for my Kinetic Shadow so far (and while I find his personality somewhat Amusing, he can be rather annoying at times), though I may have fallen into somewhat of a trap with gear - I have not been able to keep up on gear for more than one companion, so when I made the switch from Qyzen to Tharan after a few levels Qyzen's equipment was too outdated for him to be useful. With earning currency being tied so closely to completing quests and leveling, I've just stuck with Tharan since (why would I buff Qyzen when he might not work out for me and I could have buffed Tharan). I do plan on giving Nadia a try when I get her, but I fear she won't work out (based on the same experience you've had). Maybe I'll have a different experience as I get a bit higher, but I've yet to try any of the other companions in combat as I've been unable to properly gear them. I'm also curious - one previous shadow poster mentioned they use biotech; I hate the idea of switching so I haven't, but perhaps as a tank it's more difficult to get away with using a companion other than Tharan if you're not using biotech. I'm curious if anyone else has any thoughts on this.

I realize I'm a bit late to the party here, but I wanted to give my two cents. The problem with the GTN lies in the fact that the "Central Hub" of this game is actually your ship, and does not contain a GTN terminal. Typically in MMO's, a City/Town (in this case planet or fleet) becomes a central hub when it offers quick and easy travel services to the most common locations - usually end-game content or leveling areas. In this game, the travel between locations is all done by your ship, thus making your ship the place you want to be. The fleet I suppose would be a secondary central hub, but it's too many of it's services are offered elsewhere, typically along your path (If my quest is taking me to Tatooine, why would I stop at the vendors and skill trainers in the fleet when I can find them in the market of the starting city?). Really the only way to "solve" the "GTN Problem" is to do one of three things: Add a GTN Terminal and Mailbox to the player's ship. (I don't understand the realism complaint's here - how do you know how the mailbox system functions?) Add a GTN Terminal to every marketplace. (This would be a lot more work I would imagine) Give more of an incentive to go to the fleet often. I don't do flashpoints, don't even know what they are, and this seems to be a primary incentive to using the fleet.