Darth Nox, in his/her own storyline is a loser who is repeatedly beaten down, only to survive through happenstance and force ghost intervention. Contrast that with the Wrath, who pretty much crushes everything set before them. It's also worth noting that the Wrath is portrayed as much more intelligent and calculating, potentially. The Warrior story is filled with opportunities to turn former enemies into allies/minions and to get under the skin of Jedi in a way Nox never approaches.

I agree that Revan has, or should have, little love for the Republic. Everything ever written about the character of Revan suggests his complete disregard for tradition and institutions of authority. Revan cares about progress, whatever that happens to be at the times. He's very much an "end justifies the means" sort of personality and has been from the very beginning. He is the very soul of an extremist. He's already demonstrated this, over and over again. He is willing to sacrifice civilians, cities, even entire planets to reach a particular goal.... and that's when he was saving the Republic from the Mandalorians! He's shown repeatedly that he respects neither the Republic as a government, which he views as ineffective, nor the Jedi Order, which he views as stagnant. Add the fact that he's likely... you know... insane by now, and his recent actions don't seem out of character in the least.

Well, you need to keep a few factors in mind. 1. While the Chiss are one of the few alien races the Empire will openly acknowledge, and are somewhat less likely to experience open, in your face specism within the Empire, they do not work exclusively for the Empire. It's also worth noting that they do still experience the Empires intolerance, just to a more subtle degree (mostly), so it's not hard to imagine a Chiss freelancing or working against the Empire. 2. An enemy infiltrator can be *anything*. Singling out the Chiss would not make, for example, a group of rebel sympathizers any safer. It's even more likely that any Imperial threat will arrive in the form of a human being. 3. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the same logic used to exclude Chiss agents actually makes them extremely valuable to the "other side". Real life terrorist organizations work like this, and this is a military tactic that was recorded as far back as The Art of War. An agent that can move among your enemies, without drawing suspicion, is obscenely valuable and worth taking a chance on, worth allowing the opportunity to prove their loyalty.

I love kaliyo. ...However, I refuse to believe that the Agent, regardless of alignment, would be stupid enough to marry a textbook sociopath.

It's not just that the Jedi way is hard, but that the Jedi way, at least the way the council teaches, is *broken*. The rift between Jedi and Sith isn't simply Good vs Evil, it is a battle between two extremist views that are equally flawed. Take the Jedi civil war in the original games as an example. Everything that transpired was ultimately due to the cowardice and inaction of the Jedi council. Had the Jedi leadership actually done something to stop the Mandalorans wanton slaughter as they reaved a path through the galaxy, Revan would have been following THEM instead of going off on his own and, well, the rest is history. It's often metioned how the Empire and the Sith are always doomed to fail... but the Jedi have the exact same problem. They are repeatedly brought to the edge of annihilation throughout the history the starwars universe, and almost always their problems begin. ironically with the councils paralyzing fear of corruption.

I see this often and I have two issues. 1. You are seriously underestimated WoWs influence. The idea of being able to QUEST your way to max level didnt really exist before WoW. 2. WoW didnt start the MMO. It started the Themepark. That's what's constantly copied to the point of stagnating the genre. MMOs before WoW had a completely different mindset. They required cooperation between players. You weren't led about by a dangling carrot provided by the devs. You were given a world to explore, for your character to live in, and you made your own fun. Victory wasn't a foregone conclusion just for showing up.

Responses like this entirely miss the point. Why is it a WoW clone? Because EA pointed at WoW and told Bioware, "We want our version of that." Its not terribly complicated. The top brand in *any* product is copied. Competitors create a product as close to the leader as possible, except with their own little spin. True innovation is risky. I understand people don't like that being said. If you hate WoW, it's only natural to delude yourself into believing your new favorite has nothing to do with it. Forget interface. The next time you use group finding to cue for a flashpoint or engage in structured PvP, go on thinking they have nothing to do with WoW.

It is a WoW clone. Why? There are many, many reasons but only one really matters. They are clones because the developers that make them model their games after WoW. They do so because that's what the big publishers want. The entire idea of a Themepark MMO is lifted directly from WoW. The idea that an MMO should cater to as many tastes and be as mainstream as possible, comes from WoW. It's influence is everywhere and is so pervasive people actually don't see it half the time. Blizzards model has become the default. That's not a good thing. In fact it's a very bad thing for the genre.

Believe it or not, those are real games too.

Keep in mind, by the end of Kotor 2 every Jedi Master who really knew who Kreia was, end up *dead*. And the exile is... well, an exile. You have to consider what that really means. She was essentially swept under the rug after that. Not to mention that, like Kreia, just about everyone of power and influence who knee her true story ends up dead by the end. Kotor 2 isn't a grand, sweeping epic that ends in a celebration and reknown for the hero. It was a deeply personal tale about putting ones affairs in order and dealing with the shadows of ones prior actions.

It's already using WoW mechanics. Nearly all Themepark style MMOs do. Everything from interface design to the way structured PvP is handled comes from WoW. This game, like so many others, worships at the feet of World of Warcraft. Only now, after years of spectacular failures, are MMOs creeping away from this formula.

The game IS a WoW clone. It's a theme park style MMO. Ironically enough, it's probably the most restrictive and content dependent MMO released in the past several years. It wasn't designed in a completely different way. It was designed to be a direct competitor. EA wanted its own version of Activisions cash cow. The features players demand aren't the issue. Swtors real problem is that Bioware, because of the design choices they made, cannot fully deliver on the games potential. There was a chance. It didn't work out that way. We will get some entertaining story content every so often, but the dream of regular updates to the class stories and continuations of the companion interactions are on the back burner.

Even objective stealing is such a momentary annoyance I don't see why anyone would waste time complaining on the boards. Back in, say, Everquest, kill stealing meant something. Rare mobs were actually rare. Having one kill stolen was akin to stealing several minutes of your life. Not only did mobs not instantly respawn, but resting to recover spent HP took minutes, not seconds. There was even a time when a solo player could kill steal from entire groups, wasting several the time of several players at once. That was why gamers created rules of conduct in the first place. It was more then just a casual irritation. Then you another issue. More and more MMOs are moving towards the GW2 type system of allowing everyone who takes part in combat to get credit. This is becoming the norm. Even games resistant to it, like WoW, have been moving in that general direction. When new players come to Swtor there is an increasingly greater chance that they are coming from games where kills cannot be stolen in any sense. Basically the old rules of kill stealing are becoming out dated and soon simply won't apply. If there is one tangible issue it's this. If you asked politely that they not do it, and they go out of their way to do it anyway, then yes they're being jerks. But then again we all have to deal with trolls at some point or another.

The Sith Warrior storyline boring? If you want to, it's entirely possible to play the SW as darkside and be a cunning, intelligent manipulator rather then a dull, one dimensional brute. It's entirely up to you. In regards to the Inquistor, I'd go as far as to say Chapter 1 was *not* all right. The seeds of what's wrong with chapter 2 are planted right there. Your character never acts like an Inquistor. You are forced to play the role of the dull lackey. It's a missed opportunity. One of the subplots of chapter 1 should have been for your character to do some research and knowledge seeking of their own. Make some attempt to figure out what Vash's plan is, instead of walking like a fool into a trap that you know is coming. But by far the biggest problem with the SI storyline is how often control is taken away from you. It's ridiculous how many times you'll defeat a boss, only to Auto-Lose because the plot demands it.

Sandbox is now an umbrella term for anything that gives players a sense of freedom within the gaming environment. There really shouldn't be much confusion over the definition of the Themepark MMO, however. Themepark MMO = WoW clone. It was WoW that really solidified the idea of the progressive gear treadmill. Earlier games like Everquest and Asherons Call weren't themeparks. You were presented with a world to explore and you pretty much set your own personal goals. It wasn't the constant stream of breadcrumbs and the promise of increasing rewards that are the hallmark of a Themepark MMO.

Its a single player focused game with emphasis on the leveling process rather then end game content. That's what it is. While I disagree with the OP, fact is the game would already be dead without those players who appreciate what the game does best.

Swtor is the exact opposite of a sandbox style game on any level. It's just not designed to be that kind of game. Also it wouldn't be so simple. First, some planets have entirely different versions and level ranges for different factions. Second, the generally linear design means there's only on or two paths to take towards any given objective. There would be literally no way to get around the ganking when every planet is filled with choke points and ambush zones.

Disney doesn't lose anything from TOR. As long as EA/Bioware have the right to use the Starwars name and abide by whatever guidelines and stipulations come with that, Swtor has nothing to fear from Disney.

It's not really about evil or hypocrisy. The Empires more complicated then that. The Empire has two distinct layers. The foundation of the Empire, is the idea that the end justifies the means. The Empire is structured, orderly and highly efficient, a well oiled machine. It is a often cruel, uncaring machine... But it's a machine that *works*. The people of the Empire are not evil, persay. Then you have the second layer, the Sith leadership. The Sith manage to screw up just about everything effective about the Empire with their power plays and in-fighting. Sith usually are evil or at least amoral, but more importantly they tend to be forces of chaos. That doesn't sit well with the highly ordered nature of imperial society. You can't talk about the Empire as if those two sides are the same thing. And while you can pick out specific instances of hypocrisy from the Imps, they aren't that way as a whole. The Republic, on the other hand, has a lot of political corruption festering at its core that they try to hide behind a wall of good intentions.

It's accurate, in the context of an MMO. Sandbox is short-hand for any feature that gives players the ability to alter the game space, even if the scale is limited. Terms aren't static things. They can evolve over time and broaden in meaning.

Sandbox elements would be great... Just don't get your hopes up. Fact is, by its very design, Swtors *planets* are more like linear dungeons then actual environments. The game is woefully unprepared to support any kind of self sustaining content. They would have to create a new planet, designed from the ground up to support exactly that. Does the current team have the resources or even the know-how to pull it off? It's not impossible, but its another one of those things that would be 1-2 years away at least.

You need to understand what EA *is*. EA is a major publisher. That means EA roams around and 'swallows' developers who have IP's they think will be profitable and built in fan bases. EA is a machine. It demands 'yearly' hits. Franchises that can be dependently milked year after year after year, like say, Mass Effect or the Sims or the Battlefield series. They want games *designed* from the ground up to support either subscriptions or some form of constant downloadable content. They want a constant flow of revenue. Monolithic organizations such as this don't 'think'... and certainly not outside the box. They fund a project in the hopes of making large amounts of money. If it fails, they move on. Swtor *failed* as far as EA is concerned. They will keep the lights on, so to speak, so long as Bioware can keep things in the black. But make no mistake. EA will shut the game down entirely before they throw any real support behind it again. It's just a small team at Bioware, doing what they can with what they've got from now on.

It's not reasonable, at this point, to demand an expansion on the class stories. The class stories, and the idea of the narratives and companion relationships being continued for years after launch was what drew me to the game. Indeed, it would set the game apart from every other MMO and give Bioware the canvas to create epic storylines that built on everything that came before. ...but that ship has sailed, most likely. And if it does come about, it will be more than a year from now in the form of a major expansion. Bioware boxed themselves into a corner. The game, by the very nature of how it's designed, was never going to be able to hold enough subscriptions to please their masters within EA. Keep in mind, EA didn't want to simply make a profit. EA was aiming for a Warcraft level blockbuster. They wanted a major MMO property they could leech from, much like Activison. That was the *only* way Bioware would have had the funds and resources needed to expand the class stories (at least within the next year or so). When that failed, support from EA dried up. The team was slashed and the rest is history. The previous year has shown us how long it takes for the current team to put out *any* form of content. It is simply within their best interest to bring the number of storylines from eight, to two. The only way that's NOT a good idea is if the lack of additional class story chapters, by itself, would lead to a dramatic loss in subscriptions. I doubt that's the case. I don't like it, but we have to deal with the reality of the situation.

The problem with asking which storyline is best is that, for most people, it comes down to personal preference. Some people don't like the Smuggler storyline because its not epic enough for them. That's not a fair critique of the actual storyline. It's more like saying, "I don't like the smuggler storyline because I don't like being a smuggler." The only way to find out which you like is to try them. The only storyline I would say is flat out badly written is the Sith Inquisitor.

If there's a gag order, there's a gag order. I don't lay blame at the feet of the community team. Saying the community team should leak info, assuming they even have anything new to share, is tantamount to demanding these people put their jobs, or at the very least their reputations with upper management, in peril. We really are talking about people's livelihoods here. That's what it means to go up against corporate. You don't do it if you want to protect your job.