That is not really what I am getting out of their statement. From my point of view the above seems to refer more to customization in general such as allowing us to remove barrels, hilts and armoring mods from purple armor. I really have no reason to believe that they are in fact referring to once again changing the hue system after implementing it. The below statement is not targeted at anyone in specific. I understand some of us don't have much faith in Bioware with some of the changes they make but I do think they are trying. For example, Bioware after the outcry over the GCD UI changes will now allow us to tailor it to our own preferences and they could have easily caved in to one segment of the playerbase but instead they are going to give us an option. And yes, there are plenty of things wrong in this game but I do think the bad sides are exaggerated. I find it rather unfortunate that the bad nowadays seems to outweigh the good and I do believe it hurts the MMO market. I don't think any MMO will ever be seen as good again until enough are willing to accept nothing can ever be completely perfect. I believe that Bioware is more than certainly showing the willingness to make changes and I do think what they want to do in regards to customization is a good step. In my eyes customization will be perfect once most armor can be adopted and I don't really need an appearance tab anymore for this.

Currently appearance customization takes way too much effort. It seems that most gear isn't even around as orange gear. It is also way too difficult to keep wearing pants as a Consular or Sorcerer. I don't care there are some pants when you will suffer in stats for way too long just because you absolutely don't want your character to be wearing a robe. I find it rather unfortunate, to put it mildly that Bioware has seemingly ignored the issue of appearance customization for so long. During beta there were enough good ideas brought forward instead of them having to split the system in two with moddable item and non-moddable items. If all items all drop with mods you can still act as if there is no modding but with the way the system works now the people pro-customization lose out. Having to save up money to upgrade your armor to be on par with what should in fact be worse, a green item, shows one of the weaknesses of what is a dual system when it should have been one system, aka all items should be moddable. Your character's appearance is especially important in cinematics which also shows the weakness of the argument concerning the removal of color matching. When so many people in beta support something, almost unanimously, the last thing you should do is remove it for something "better", especially when that new feature is still a long ways off. It is good to know Bioware wants to make some changes but those changes wouldn't even have been needed if Bioware had just actually listened to feedback. Bioware constantly pride themselves on customer driven development and I believe that should have also applied to deafening feedback during beta on and outside of the beta forums. Some of us have debated for appearance customization for over year but all we got was silence.

Sure, not everyone is a clone but many will be. Visual progression should not be forced or be the route of least resistance whereas adopting a look outside of the progression model takes way more effort, especially with the way it works now. I am not really that against the mod system and I, for one, don't really want an appearance tab anymore but I do think the RNG to even get certain appearances of green armor is too much. I play on a server with a good population and yet even on that server custom armor is way too hard to come by. I do still see many people wearing orange gear but that is mainly thanks to armor gotten through commendations, certain heroic quests or through flashpoints but a lot of that armor looks the same for certain classes. Even though many people run around in orange gear there is still a significant clone effect for which either the RNG is too blame or simply the fact that there are probably not that many different looks available for adoption. Fortunately Bioware will address this issue somewhat by making purple gear fully moddable once again, as it should have been all along. Anyway, so far I have had no real issues upgrading my gear and I also don't have any issues with my cash flow to keep my gear fully modded. I do know people who have a hard time with their character's cash flow once they have orange gear for most slots but with the right money making crew skills and the ability to make your own mods this shouldn't be a huge issue. In the end I will probably have less money on my character than someone who doesn't care about the appearance of their character but at end game this shouldn't be an issue I can't deal with. Once purple gear is fully moddable again the effort to keep your orange gear up-to-date has diminished some and I hope this will indeed get implemented within a decent time frame. I have to agree that all gear should be moddable or at least most. I honestly believe green and blue gear is utterly useless based on the fact that I see most people run around with orange (custom) gear. I really wonder if green and blue armor pieces even sell. Pretty much all armor pieces can easily be made orange and the people who don't care about adopting a look can still play the game in the same exact way. I don't think the progression model will remotely suffer from it because you can't adopt the latest look unless you own it and you can't adopt certain looks until a certain level either. People who are into appearance aren't automatically against the progression model and enough of us will still adopt a new look whenever it indeed looks better, even when it looks more elaborate. With my Jedi Knight I have worn 3 to 4 different orange chest pieces so far. People who know me from previous iterations of this thread know that I am somehow who wanted to adopt a look indefinitely and yet even in the end don't do this. I think most people will still want to wear something different once in a while, which does maintain the progression model for everyone. I want to make another comment on hoods which is also a form of appearance customization. If a hood gets removed from a chest piece once my Jedi Knight equips an actual helmet it does show a hood down feature can't be that difficult to implement.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1398252#edit1398252 I am taking a wait and see approach but I do think the above, for me, is the right direction.

Sorry but where do you even get your supposed "facts" from? Most of my guildies keep upgrading the same exact orange gear instead of replacing it with new gear, so your so-called facts are likely to not be remotely true. People want their characters too look good instead of a developer dictating them they should look one specific way. What you like means that there will be people who absolutely hate the look of their character which means they will sooner quit the game than continue playing. The look of your character is very important for a good amount of people. Also, with a developer dictating a certain look based on an achievements always means everyone of the same class will end up looking exactly the same. I really don't understand why some think it is a good idea to have everyone looking the same and have people quit because of it. The trend in the MMO-market is clear where pretty much every MMO allows us to look the way we want to look, except in SWTOR. Yes, we have orange gear but thanks to purple gear we are still forced to look one way at end game. And no, just wearing your preferred look whenever you are not doing any of the content is not remotely a solution because a game is in the end always about doing content and I want to look good while playing the game, not while just standing around inside a city or wherever. I don't really see how transmogrification can be seen as complicated. I do think transmogrification is more "realistic" than an appearance tab. Modding can be a pain but I don't think the mod system should be replaced for an appearance tab. Right now, all I want to see is changes made to the mod system to stop the nonsense of having to wear the exact same gear as everyone else at end game. And please add orange belts. I haven't seen any orange belt so far and even though only a handful are listed on sites such as DH and Torhead I don't believe they actually exist. I would also like to see the ability to make whatever is put into the helmet slot of my companions invisible.

Sorry but I completely disagree. Why should Bioware or anyone else get to tell me that I should show off my achievements through gear? With your idea there is no differentiation, period, between players who are at end game because when you force people to show off their latest achievements most players will look exactly the same at end game. Edit: I have gotten three orange chest pieces on my Jedi Knight so far and the only difference between the chest pieces is color and absolutely nothing else. There is just way too little gear variety in this game. Also, I don't understand how it is somehow takes time to have a hood down feature when a Twi'Lek can run around in a Reinforced Phrik Chestguard without the hood showing. And with so many Jedi Knight chest pieces being nothing more but recolors it just can't be that much work. I also would really like to see a different pair of boots for once. For the past 15 levels I have been wearing the same exact pair of boots with the only difference being color. Maybe it is just me but I can't see painters being proud of creating the same painting a bunch of time, only in a different color, which is why I don't understand why any other type of artist would do this. There are enough ways to make armor look different without having to add bits or without having to make it about recolors. One way to make gear somewhat different is by adding different markings/emblems on it. There are examples in SWTOR where this is done but I think it is not done enough. I never expected Bioware to give us an appearance adoption system I fully agree with but I did expect more different looking gear. Heck, on the latter I had low expectations and yet it is still less than I expected, the whole purple armor nonsense isn't really helping with the variety either. I also expected to basically see an upgrade to a certain theme about every 5 levels with new bits being added and I am no seeing that either. So far the gear in this game resembles that of WoW or maybe an even better example, AoC. In AoC I never felt I got anything new or looked different from anyone else playing the same class, same here in SWTOR. Final comment regarding RP-features. I remember the patch notes stating that you could sit in most chairs, but since when are the chairs in your spaceship MOST chairs? (I don't think the patch notes made mention of it being most chairs in your spaceships only.) I also believe that in an MMO RP'ing is not just about the story created by the developers as in single player games but it is more about interacting with other players and the more tools there are in the game the better. I honestly believe Bioware may not fully understand roleplaying or they don't think it is a priority.

No kidding. They even used the number thousands and that is not even true for all classes combined. Probably Bioware actually meant item combinations to form your own set but that is just complete hogwash and not remotely a number to be proud of because most MMOs have that "many combinations". Also, even the missus is now complaining on how difficult and expensive it actually is to keep upgrading orange gear as soon as you own multiple pieces. This game is hugely lacking in appearance customization because it takes way too much effort to adopt anything and then you are still screwed with not having an Augment slot on your gear or completely screwed once you also account for set bonuses. And then I shouldn't forget to mention how it is absolute nonsense that even if end game gear would not be any better than orange gear you still have to do twice the amount of work plus spend extra money just to be able to upgrade your orange gear to be on par with purple gear. Sorry but the mod system is nice in theory but it is just way too cumbersome to work with. I am also not remotely looking forward to have to discard the appearance I like at end game just because the mod system is way too unforgiving. Effort is fine but the effort needed is completely out of whack right now. Remember, Bioware believes that different colored gear gives us a sense of visual progression, see their argument regarding taking out color matching for "something better". I really don't think it should be our problem that they decided color should denote progression just to make us believe (I doubt many people actually believe that) there is more gear. I much rather have less gear instead of gear which are just recolors. It is really shouldn't be about the quantity but it should be about the quality. I also recall a statement from the Lead Design Artist at Bioware (Darth Hater interview from likely over a year ago) that the gear system in this game would be different from that in WoW but I am not seeing this at all. He even talked about having themes which progressively get better looking with upgrades about every 5 levels but I am not even seeing this. I used to see something a bit like that in beta but not any longer. And even if it is still there it doesn't seem to be handed out in an obvious way, not to mention I just wish all armor was adoptable so I actually could embrace a theme without having to jump through an insane amount of hoops. Having to keep upgrading about 7 or more orange items per character costs way, way too much. And just an idea, but I wouldn't mind crafters having the ability to ADD an Augment slot to orange items as a way to counter set bonuses on purple gear if they find such bonuses absolutely necessary. I really can see this thread exploding once people find out at end game that they once again have to settle for an appearance chosen by the developers instead of an appearance chosen by us from a sample of different appearances. Please give us some actual appearance customization. For all I care we should all be able to extract mods from even green and blue items, which are useless to someone like me anyway (especially chest armor and weapons).

Exactly. I haven't really seen a whole lot of options so far. There seem to be only a few looks you can actually adopt if your class doesn't wear light armor. It seems the vast majority of armor appearances available is not adoptable. Heck, adopting anything is still a huge pain with orange armor from crafters having a level requirement without mods. An appearance my Imperial Agent had in the first two beta weekends seems to be a close to max level requirement. Bioware needs to add significantly more appearances because hood up and hood up (too much gear for the Jedi and Sith only has the option of hood up) isn't really a lot of choice. I just think it is rather unfortunate that there is not even a hood down toggle which was even an option in DAoC. We already have a helmet toggle and I really want to see this extended to the hoods because I didn't create my character's face to always have it hidden.

I totally agree. For all I care one epic mod costs the same amount of commendations as one piece of epic gear, but at least make it possible. All I want is to be able to choose my own wardrobe instead of being forced to end up updating my look because certain gear is just better than what moddable gear. I would also like it to be made somewhat easier to get orange armor. Getting orange weapons is easy enough but armor does seem way harder to get. I have seen enough armor I do like and I would hope for most to be moddable but I do think the effort needed to acquire the armor without mods could use some tweaking. I think getting the mods themselves already takes enough extra effort.

I just did a search for orange armor on the GTN/AH (can't even search for orange separately) and I only found 3 armor pieces and there were many pages full of blue and green armor. I really hope that orange armor is going to stay this hard to find because currently I am rather disappointed. I honestly believe orange armor will probably stay extremely rare whereas it is much easier to find orange weapons. I also again have to express my dissatisfaction with there being no color matching. I think Bioware really made the wrong decision to take it out because they want something new to give a sense of accomplishment by keeping their extremely lack-luster visual progression system. Sorry Bioware but two pants with a stripe in a different color is NOT new armor and nor is an adequate way to represent progression.

Good luck with that because as an enemy player you can't even get to the starter areas of the other faction. Edit: I have to say that so far I am rather disappointed in how Bioware is handling launch (and yes this is actual launch). I have never before seen this many errors being made on launch day by a developer and that is saying something. The way they are staggering launch has made this exploit even bigger than it would otherwise have been. The servers aren't even remotely full. Bioware is playing way to save with getting us all in the game and they most certainly should have added far more than they did.

A lot of people fail to understand why Bioware is staggering Early Access. Staggering is not about somehow not being able to handle a certain amount of players, it is about not opening up too many servers just because all other servers are full. Even Rift's launch was not flawless and they fell into the same trap a lot of people on here seem to want Bioware to fall into as well, opening up too many servers which will lead to server mergers. Someone else in this thread gave a good answer as to why Bioware would stop with the waves, mainly because at prime time more people will actually get in. There is probably still a considerable amount of players who didn't take a day off and who still got invited to start Early Access and it is likely Bioware wants to make sure they can actually still log in to the same servers they have made available currently instead of adding deadweight servers to the mix way too early on. There are a good amount of servers which are full right now, but that doesn't have to mean they are actually full as in full towards whatever eventual limit a server will have. Bioware, and I think rightly so, wants to not make the same exact mistake Mythic made with their head start.

They didn't tell people about this too late at all. Bioware even mentioned Early Access would be staggered based on a first come first serve basis on the redemption of your pre-order code on the first day you were able to pre-order the game, namely the 21st of July. And they can't even give you a general date for the waves because they can't know for certain beforehand if they can actually let you in around that time or even on that day.

Sorry but I defended Bioware up to this point but stopping with the waves for a whole day just doesn't make any sense to me. I thought Bioware wanted to make sure that they don't have open too many servers and staggering helps with that but I do think you guys are pushing it in the way it is done. During the main beta test weekend servers were holding up really well and about 750,000 people were able to play/test the game, so I don't see why the waves have to be this small this time around to only account for a few days in July. I think at this pace anyone who ordered after August can expect to get in on Sunday.

I wouldn't call opening as many servers as possible a better roll out. WAR had a terrible roll out and having many almost empty servers after just some days made people quit as well.