and thanks for all the fish So sad that it should come to this We tried to warn you all but oh dear..... Wait, you weren't going to sing? DANG it! I was so excited. I <3 the song.

Once you are near your max 2k limit, start turning them into "Ranked WZ tokens" for War Hero gear.

1. Huttball 2. NC 3. Civil War. 4. Voidstar. Like the OP said, Huttball just feels like a giant playground, with the hazards. It adds another element to thing about, and can set up for some pretty amusing plays and tactics (such as saving your stuns, or get out of jail free cards). It's also a bit different than your common CPT that every game seems to have.

Not yet.. but I'm getting closer. It's mainly due to the population issues with the WZ's. Running into the same 20 something people over and over and over. If there was cross-server WZ's I don't think I would mind it anywhere near as much, or if they merged several of the lower population servers together. I'm a huge SW nerd, so maybe I'm a bit of a Homer on this; but I feel they can still save the game. Especially if they re-worked Ilum into a huge pvp zone, that had quests and objectives that mattered (like DAoC's Frontier, then throw in epic crafting nodes to fight over in addition to Outposts that guilds can claim). The primary issue would be that the game plays horribly when there are 40+ people in one area though.

^ this. That's one thing I do miss about DAoC, was the PvP. 1. It had the huge/epic pvp battles that even WoW can't do - 200 vs 100 vs 80.. (yes about 300 people) in one small area at one time, all fighting over a keep (castle) that was intrinsically important to your sides prosperity (not a BG/WZ that resets) 2. Which meant that PvP meant something more than just a title. Holding that keep during a massive siege, helped protect your side's interest (controlling relics) that aided your side by boosting dps. In addition to bragging rights. 3. Also being able to claim those said keeps with your guild meant you were invested in the world environment, which even wow couldn't come close to. The keep meant something, it was YOUR keep, your guilds keep, to protect. The alliance feature w/ other guilds assisted in this. 4. And it also had the small roving pvp (8 V 8): elite hardened pvp teams (8 man/woman) that would often go against multiple groups or constantly search for each other, and who were very useful for intercepting the relic run groups. Lots of PvP that mattered! (the game had other issues, but the PvP was spot on)

It would be nice if you at least got a "Reinforcement" bonus/medal or something; as you've already spent the time in queue, but now are in a WZ that someone left (so it's probably a losing one). As is, there isn't much incentive (and by much I mean any) to stay if you join late.

I don't know, with the way it is now I don't blame people for leaving sometimes. When there are only a few people queuing and you hit the same premade that just wiped the floor with your group, again... I don't blame someone for leaving that. When you enter a WZ, only to find it's already more than halfway through, and you're on the losing side, AND a healer. Why waste your time staying in and got 0 reward? Personally, if I start a WZ, I stay till the end- but there are a lot of times when people leave and I don't blame them. If I enter a FailZ, that's already half over, then I jump ship (WZ's are painful enough as a solo healer, I don't need to compound that by wasting my time).

If they are in DPS gear, then they are not someone with all the tanking/survivability + DPS.

Yeah, I'm not buying it. In Pre-50 I would often be near the top DPS, but usually that meant our side had very low lvl people without their abilities who were dying frequently, or poorly spec'd geared. Usually if I was near the top DPS it means we lost. Post 50, I'm either near the bottom or the very bottom (not counting healers). I'm spec'd for tanking, and wearing the pvp tanking gear. I realize my job is to guard a healer, and keep people off him so that he can do his thing. So that means I'm using the appropriate canister (or stance); and I'm not so much worried about killing people as CCing them (roots, stuns, freezes, pulls and taunts). If I'm using a DPS canister (stance), then I lose a lot of that (my HP's, guard, and survivability). If I use DPS gear, then I again lose the survivability (though I know a lot of pvp tanks go this route because of shield/armor issues being somewhat broken). Tanks are fine to sub-par (due to the shield/armor issues and a majority of the attacks going past them) in PvP.... though I do love my power tech. Zoom jump-rocket-punch! uppercut-buttercup.

What I like is during the week, where I'm pugging, finish a game. Join a new one, and now it's the exact same 16 people; just the deck has been reshuffled. "Ah, I'm with soandso this time, cool; but crap, yadayada is on the other team now." Then the next game after that it's the same thing, and then the same thing, and then the same thing - just the players are shuffled. At least it's not as frustrating as when a Premade queues. Then I just end up going against them every other match (sometimes multiples in a row). After they crush your pug the first time, you know it's going to be a long night and no real point in re-queuing.

I pretty much Queue solo for PvP, and the past week every battle I saw the exact same people on my team or the other team. It was just shuffling us back and forth. Occasionally you'ld see someone new, but it couldn't have been more than 20 people queuing on both sides. Today was Saturday, and I'd estimate it was closer to 30-35 people; as there were a couple Republican guild groups. I really, really hope Bioware is taking these issues to heart, and makes changes sooner rather than later. Merging servers, or at least having cross-server warzones.

~ 32'ish people (or less) PvPing today during prime time hours 6pm - 9pm. 2 premade Republican groups and almost enough for 2 Empire groups. Every battle, I saw the same people, either on our side or the other side. I understand it's May 5th, and it's a party day, but last weekend was no different. During the week it's half that. I'm worried that by the time server or at the very least cross-server warzone merges come out that it'll be too late. As it is, those that DO PvP are ridiculously testy in the BG's because they are so frustrated by the state of the game. They take out their frustrations on each other in their group, and constantly leave the WZ's shortly after they start if even the slightest things go wrong. Changes need to be made sooner rather than later.

Bracket: 50 Class: Powertech (tank-utility spec) / Sorcerer (heal spec) Win Rate: < 10% Gear: 800 / 1000 - expertise. Valor rank: 51 / 41 Queuing: Duo / Solo Pre-50 w/ Powertech duoing w/ friend, it was > 80% wins. Post 50, it dropped of significantly due to lack of expertise as well as going against more pre-mades. On the healer, I'm usually the only healer in PUGs, and almost always targeted first... it's just messy without more expertise (at least against groups with a brain that target the healer first).

I've been lvling up my Powertech w/ a friend's agent healer. We usually spend 4-6 hrs every Saturday just PvPing. More often than not, he is the ONLY healer on our side. Usually if it's Imp vs Imp, the other side may only have 1 healer too. The G.O.P. seems to always bring more healers to the table, and support them. Not sure if that's a side effect of a smaller population, and thus having to work with each other better or what. So, this is my pet peeve (my main's a healer) - healers seem to get less valor in BG's. As a healer, you're not going to get the uber dps medal, killing blow medal, protection medals, etc. You spend the whole game (against good teams), running for your life, and very rarely getting any credit when you save someone. My buddy Healer rocks and usually tops the healing charts! I look at the charts after, and see that he was the only one on our side healing, he rocked the healing (he doesn't just heal me), and the MvP votes are frequently to random DPS'ers.. You want more healers, when you see a healer on your side rocking it, TELL THEM! Hug them, give them a MVP vote!

DAoC was a great pvp game. From open world 8v8 teams to the massive keep battles with siege gear and 500+ people in one area. I'm still longing for a successor to that (WAR failed). I just got done with the Ilum daily (as Empire), and I'm never going back. It reminded me of watching 100 albs camping their mile gate (MG) against 8-16 Mids or Hibs. :| Just not very fun. Luckily DAoC wised up, and made other ways of getting into zones, and eventually removed the MGs. Hopefully SW:tOR will figure it out too. Till they do, no point in going back to Ilum for me. Don't want to spend 2+ hrs on a daily, trying to get kills from healing the zerg (Hint: you don't get kill credit healing!) or waiting with the other 100 people for 4 boxes to respawn. At least getting farmed by premades in War Zones gives you some tokens to buy gear with eventually.

It seems that if there is an instant pop to join when Queuing for a Warzone I get punted to character selection. This seems to happen very frequently (I'm at about 9x in a row after getting into one WZ). Talk about frustrating.

At several of the equipment token venders you can frequently (not sure if on all worlds) buy lightsabers that have will on them. These are mod'able so you just need to equip new mods in them as you lvl. This is pretty easy to do for a few tokens at each planet you go to from the token mod vendor. Or you can talk to guildies that are lvling up their crew skills, and they can probably assist you with mods to keep the lightsabers lvl equivalent to your own.

Been getting punted a lot tonight. Got punted, into Queue. Entered the game after a 10 min wait, only to insta-d/c back and re-enter Queue.