I had the very same thought this morning—Smugglers making deliveries and Bounty Hunters tracking targets. I did a search and found your post, and I think this is something the story team should figure out soon. Create a series of dailies that have dynamic story elements and allow greater immersion in class roles.

I did get through this the first time on my Guardian, but it was close. Also, I'd recently tanked a string of flashpoints, so my reactions were well-honed when it came to pulling aggro. I realized pretty quickly that I needed to keep everyone off Doc, and make that my main priority. I blew every cooldown, including heroic moment, reapplying my shield as soon as I could. I noted afterwards that it really was like tanking a boss fight, and the challenge was kind of exhilarating. I don't know how a Sentinel would approach this, other than to use a tank companion, or bring a tank friend with you.

I'll second this. I'm always opening my Mission Log to read objectives. It would be nice to have something more immediate.

It can be a bit of a chore to level alts in an MMO. Beyond simply re-visiting quest lines, seeing the same scenery, etc., there is also the chore of continuing to loot/craft/buy gear so your character can get through content. Other games have addressed these challenges by introducing "heirloom" items that max level characters can purchase and send to alts. These items 1) offer an significant XP boost and 2) have stats that level with your character. My advice for SWTOR is to have the Legacy Construction Kit items level with a character, taking on the attributes of a "blue" item at that character's level. The XP bonus would be nice, but isn't as essential in this game. Keeping up equipment through commendations and crafting is always resource-intensive, and enemies can quickly overpower you at the same same level. Thank you, and I hope the developers will consider introducing this feature soon.

I don't believe any of us wants simply for the game to survive, we want to see it thrive. I have beta tested the Blizzard games, and plan on checking out GW2 this weekend. I see good things in all of them. But above the others, I'd like to see this game thrive, and I believe that success will only come with the support of the community.

I unsubscribed back in February, after about 2 months of play. It was a mix of things. Frustration with the game’s performance on my system, disappointment that it wasn’t shaping up to be the new MMO hotness, and general anger that the developers failed to draw in millions to share in the beloved Star Wars IP. Right or wrong, I was measuring the temperature of the community by what was said on these and other forums. Indeed, there were many that shared my upset, and so I took the only decisive action I could; I cancelled my subscription. It felt good at first. I felt like I was cutting myself off from the discomfort of being stretched between the almost-great potential of this game, and the harsh reality that greatness wouldn’t be realized for years—if ever. I downloaded Rift and got bored in an evening. I went back to WoW, and found the old guild welcoming and still trucking along. I started up again in the forever loop of gear grinding. The community was great, but soon I was back to only logging once or twice a week. Seven days of free access was enough. I came back. Why even try again? What changed? I got perspective. This game has some painful damn flaws. That said, it has a lot going for it too. Many of us want desperately for this game to succeed. Thing is, we can unsub and vote with our dollars, or we can stick it out for an indeterminate time, building the community and giving the developers the feedback they need, even if they don’t know how to ask for it. For those who choose the latter option, we give our gaming lives over to an uncertain future. Pursued by trolls from behind, running to jump off a blind ledge, not knowing where we’ll land, but being certain that we won’t have given in. For those who choose to stand against the tide of QQ for something greater ... may the Force be with you.

Does this sound right? I'm running a 2011 MacBook Pro with an i7 processor, 6770M Radeon, and 8GB RAM. Initially, my FPS was terrible, but improved greatly after updating my AMD driver. When questing, I can generally run on high settings, and even turn on shadows and AA, and still be able to play, with things improving in instanced solo zones. This is of course running at the 15" 1440 x 900 screen resolution. However, there are a few things that instantly pull my FPS below 20 and make the game unplayable: 1. Warzones -- I have to turn everything to low and turn off shadows and AA to get any kind of decent performance. 2. Flashpoints -- same as above. The system lags too much on high and I risk killing the group (I tank on a guardian). 3. Fleet -- Obviously. 4. Running at 1920 x 1080 on an external monitor. It will run for awhile on low settings, shadows off, no AA, but the system inevitably overheats and shuts down. Is this in line with what everyone is experiencing? I play WoW and Skyrim on high settings and typically get acceptable performance. Any advice is appreciated.

5 stars for civility and effort.

I play a lvl 28 Jedi Guardian, and have found macros to be very helpful. I have the mouse wheel up/down bound to two different macros that I can constantly spam; one to build focus and one to spend focus. The "build focus" macro naturally triggers my focus-generating abilities: Combat Focus > Sundering Strike > Strike The "spend focus" macro uses my high-damage, short-cooldown abilities: Riposte > Blade Storm > Slash All other abilities are on individual keys, as I find that they're all situational, but in a game where so many keybinds are necessary, I find it very helpful to macro what would otherwise be 6 keys to one mouse wheel.

This should be posted on every financial blog in the world, and yet here we are in the SWTOR Crew Skill forums.

I think this is an important point. DPS always wants to go for the elites first (which often works while leveling with companions) but it doesn't work in Flashpoints. I play a guardian, and with proper heals I have very good survivability. If the DPS gets the weak adds down quickly, I can usually keep the elites busy. Also, I've had no trouble maintaining single-target threat using taunt on a regular basis.

The RP community has created many threads indicating features they'd like to see in-game to make it more RP-friendly (chat bubbles, interactive environments, custom emotes, etc.). Does BioWare intend to support that community? If so, can you elaborate on what we might expect to see in the near future?

I have a 2011 15" MacBook Pro running bootcamp, and the game runs will with all graphics settings turned up to High except for shadows, which are on Low. However I have found that my machine simply cannot run the game at 1920 x 1080 hooked up to an external monitor. Even with all settings on low, it brings my system to it's knees, smacks it around, and kicks it the groin. That is to say, the laptop will overheat and shut down. I only use Wifi and it seems to have absolutely no effect on my gaming experience.

7.9/10 This seems exactly right to me. B+, not quite an A. It's a very good game that falls just short of excellence. It's almost frustrating seeing so much potential tempered with mediocrity, but let's how it improves.

This says it. I'd been trying to put my finger on it as well, and here we have it. The architecture and geography don't make sense or have a realistic context, so it doesn't feel like a "world." It really is more like a series of video game levels.

Is this for real? What's your source?

Sadly, I must agree with the sentiments expressed here. It's strange that with so much good looking, star wars-feeling assets in the game, the art team decided on this direction for end-game gear. I can only assume they wanted to do something distinctive, patterned it after tier gear from WoW, and ended up with some very exaggerated looks. I hope in the future the end-game art team manages to get a better handle on the Star Wars aesthetic. There's a huge amount of art already out there to pull from (movies, comics, cartoons) and it's only a matter of embracing that and taking it to the next level. More creative use of color and lighting effects on armor might be a good place to start.

***** You make too many good points to be ignored. Also, the visuals help a lot.

Have you come across any side quests that others shouldn't miss? My favorite so far has been the Gree on Coruscant. If you're in the Senate Tower, be sure to check this one out if for no other reason than to appreciate the Gree-speak!

Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I'm currently leveling a Guardian, and already having a hard time deciding between companions. That said, it's a good problem to have. Both T7 and Kira are interesting and fun companions, and it sounds like this dilemma continues throughout the class story. Having initially leveled a trooper into his 30s, I'm here to tell you to be grateful. The companions in that story are pretty dull by comparison, and though because the class is less challenging to play, you can pretty much bring any of them to the party. Playing a JK is not easy, there are some fights where I'm barely sc****** by, but I really don't mind slowing down a little. I've been enjoying Kira's quips, but last night T7 let me know I'm the best companion he's had in 100 years, and he thinks we can save the galaxy together. I was like, "alright little guy, let's get you some upgrades!"

I know what I see, and it's been improving. Thanks for the opinion though!

I love the space combat, but then again I've always enjoyed tunnel shooters. I'm certainly open to improvements, and I'm excited to see where they go with it. Being able to dogfight in PvP situations would be amazing, as would integrating space combat into Flashpoints. For now though, it's great to have the daily missions to keep the XP accumulating even if I only have 15 minutes to play one day.

But they need to keep doing it. When I started playing this game a month ago it was fun, but more or less graphically unimpressive on my 2011 MacBook Pro. Last night I was playing and I found myself distracted during fights by appreciating the beauty of the game. Edges are smooth, lighting is richer, and the action looks fluid. Things are starting to look like many of the videos from the website. Whatever developer voodoo you're practicing, please keep it up.

You have to think first about what makes a trooper a trooper. What's the difference between a Marine and a civilian? Intensive training and some serious gear might be one answer. People are obviously individuals, so play any personality you want, but just as a Jedi relies on the force, a trooper puts faith in his gear. The soldiers I've known respect and revere what their equipment (guns, vehicles, aircraft) can do. Add to that the underlying values of discipline, hard work and sacrifice, and I think you have a basic picture of what an elite soldier would take as the core of their profession. That said, the work hard/play hard ethic is present in most military units, and the idea of the serious and stoic soldier is overplayed, so don't forget to let your trooper have some fun Also, I always thought the movie "Aliens" had a pretty good depiction of the military lifestyle, so you might check that out for inspiration. Good luck!

This is the point where a community manager needs to jump in and thank the OP for noticing the detail, and make some comment about the time and energy the devs put into these things, and how the SWTOR world is filled with connections designed for players to discover. I'm just saying. There's no better way to counteract negativity than with a little positive reinforcement.