IMO the best approach is for each tradeskill to have a very slight (5-10%) bonus to efficacy of their own crafted items, but the items themselves aren't exclusive. That said we could see biochems selling their stims (which are still FAR better than what a player could buy from a vendor) to other players, but also getting a very small boost when they use them themselves, as a bonus for being 400 biochem. The same could be applied to all other crafting as well, the trouble is these other crafting don't have any consumables yet, which is something that bioware will need to correct before this "imbalance" can even begin to remedy.

Given how little investment it takes to switch crew skills though, there's no harm in going biochem for the short term until the others are viable. I fully expect that my ops char will eventually have 400 in 3 crafting professions, to gain the maximum exclusive benefit possible (so perhaps 400 biochem, 400 arms, 400 armor) but since biochem is the only one that gives exclusive benefits for the time being, there you have it. Either way thanks for the responses guys, answers my question

Well, to the best I can tell, it's the only crew skill that gives exclusive benefits that can't be replaced by ops/pvp rewards. That said if your goal is to be as effective as possible in a group, I can't think of a reason not to pick biochem.

After having made many chars and trying out all the crafting to some degree or another, biochem appears to be the only crew skill that gives exclusive benefits to the character (Rakata stim/adrenal/meds). Am I missing something when looking at the other crew skills? Otherwise I would think 400 biochem will become mandatory for ops, eventually.

If it flops?! Given that SWTOR is at 2.08 retail currently (which means we can expect it's sitting at minimum 3.5 million total sales once digital is included, if not more) flop is a virtual impossibility at this point. Games like EvE online have been running for years profitably with only 500k subscribers, and in its opening month SWTOR is going to quadruple that even after first month dropoffs. To directly answer the question though, nope nothing will end the wow-clone era because there is no such thing as a wow clone. Everything is a MUD or a pencil and paper RPG clone if you want to get down to it, but WoW itself was just an EQ clone or a UO clone or even an SWG clone. In the end, games will continue to release with the path to profitability in mind - innovations will occur (such as SWTOR's ridiculously compelling storyline with voice acting, something unheard of in an MMO) but ultimately people are going to play it safe and keep it to a minimum. The end result is that we have a genre of game that will veeeeeryyy sloooooowwwllyyyy evolve into something amazing, but it will take many many years, and there will be no end of "such and such era" because it's not an era of MMO gaming, it's simply the nature of the genre as a whole. TL:DR SWTOR is already too big to flop, unless you have a very broad definition of flop, and there is no such thing as a wow-clone era

I'm wondering what mod changes the sound a blaster makes during its standard fire and some AOEs. Suppressive fire sounds absolutely amazing with the right gun, so wanting to rig my chapter 1 reward gun to make the right sound

So here's the real question. Why did you feel the need to let us know that this game wasn't for you? People try games and decide they don't like them all the time, and they generally don't have the inflated self-importance to think that other people would care that the game doesn't fit their preferences, so you need to ask yourself, why are you different from them?

Ya I for one am so impressed by 1.1 . This is the fastest progress I've ever seen on an MMO release in terms of both new content and bug fixes. The bug fixes particularly are almost too numerous to count, and address quite a few major issues.

That's not at it at all. The things he listed attract a certain type of person, particularly combat logs, group-wide DPS meters, etc. Bioware has repeatedly said that they want SWTOR raiding to be more accessible and as such e-peen enhancement tools like groupwide DPS meters (which are a direct result of combat logs) would be contrary to Bioware's vision of SWTOR raiding. This is why we'll be getting a DPS meter, but it will only show our own DPS for personal improvement. This in my opinion is absolutely perfect, because while I never had a problem keeping up with the elitests of WoW - and most of the time blowing their numbers out of the water, dear god were they the worst kind of MMO player, and brought nothing to the community whatsoever.

Oh wow cool. I remember all of these clan names from Corbantis. One of the original pre-CU Jedi Knights here (Re'katan - Green Twi'lek, played for a few different Rebel Guilds). So cool that you guys are still around, sadly I'm already playing on Sword of Adjunta Pall with some friends. Figured I'd say hi either way, <3

Ugh, Dec 8th and still no luck.. They picked an irritating time to slow the waves to a crawl This last one had to have been no more than a day or 2. Dec 5th guys got in last wave afterall. Oh well, tomorrow it is!

Dec 8th, no access yet.

Holy hell it looks like they knocked out the entire month of October in the first wave. Makes me a tiny bit hopeful that I'll get in last wave of today with my December registration.

There's some pretty big functionality issues with a wookie main character in a bioware game LOL. "Please please, let me live! I'll pay you 1000 credits if you let me live and tell your employer I'm dead" Option 1 (light side) - "AURHAORURHAARRRRRRR" Option 2 - "Bark Bark!!!" Option 3 (dark side) - "AAOORUH??? AORURH AAHRAR ARARARH WOOF!! *attack*"

Haha but why, it's fun This thread isn't angry enough for it to get a proper reaction though kudos to the december crew! Oddly enough the ones who have to wait the longest are being the most patient.