Pretty much. I, too, despise arenas, and beforehand, when I got them, I tried to ascertain whether my teammates knew what they were doing, and try to make up the shortfall. Now...heck with it. If their craniums appear to be placed firmly behind them and in a sunlight-deprived upwards-reaching locale, I'll walk into a lightsaber chop or a stream of blaster bolts, and get it over with quickly. If I'm in a particularly foul mood, I'll drop as soon as I warp into the arena, and eat the lockout timer. Better to sit tapping my spacebar every couple of minutes than have to put up with numbskull number-farmers. If I get an actual warzone, I'll stick it out rather than get a lockout timer, but there are fewer scenarios than before where I'll give it my all if I'm stuck in a team of complete yutzes who don't savvy such things as " 2 Incoming West pylon", the fact that, no, you are NOT supposed to let that opposing player plant a bomb on that door, or yes, you ARE supposed to move the ball into the opposing team's end zone, or no, you are NOT supposed to cap the pylon and then run away (granted, this last example has always been a problem). If all they want to do is farm, fine. One way or another, maximum effort or otherwise, I will gauge my effort to theirs. If I'm going to be forced to eat a loss, I'm not going to have my blood pressure spike doing it.

A heartfelt +1. Excellently put.

I would log in every day just to (at least) do my daily PVP matches. Even arena matches, which I hate with the intensity of a billion burning suns. Depending on how the day was going, I would stay long after I'd turned in my dailies and weeklies. And I would always try my best. I am far from a PVP deity, but maximum effort was always owed, even if the other team was brutally scalping us. Now, I auto-drop from arenas before they even start, because I have no real reason to stay , and in those cases where I get an actual warzone, the first match has invariably set the tone for the day. I understand EAWare wants to sell us stuff, and I don't expect any grand rewards for a loss, but I'm not forking over CC's or credits simply to keep adrenals and warzone meds at hand. This change, in my opinion, is one of the most fabulously myopic decisions I have experienced.

With few exceptions, most people aren't too worried about Faction specifics if such things inhibit their ability to play. I would rather have warzone pops than strict adherence to faction (and this could have been avoided with cross-server warzones). Same goes for choosing the color of my lightsaber crystals (though there are so many oddly-colored ones these days, it's pretty much irrelevant) I'm not dismissing your concerns - I simply don't share them. Plus I doubt EAWare is going to backtrack any time soon.

For...pretty much any character I have: 1) Lana Beniko (position, intelligence skills, and contacts) 2) Elara Dorne (medicine) 3) Theran Cedrax (tech/engineering skills) 4) Yuun (pretty much THE most versatile companion, at least lore-wise) 5) HK-51 (For loyalty and "communication" skills)

I am completely eclectic when it comes to outfitting my toons. I'll think "Hey, <character name> would look really good in this outfit!">, and then spend however long it takes tracking down the articles to assemble said outfi (one of the reasons I'm a fan of direct-buy off of the Cartel Market...I can now give my IA's a proper uniform, and my SW's and JK's nice weapons that aren't lightsabers). My one hiccup is Dancer/Slave Girl outfits. If someone complains about how these things aren't respectful, or mutter about how they break immersion, or <insert another argument I think is irrelevant here>, then I have no choice - none - but to buy another slot on a toon and stuff her into a dancer's get-up. I don't start out seeking to have them wear one, but I am more than willing to have my toons scoot along on Hoth or Ilum looking like multi-species Maxim models in lieu of actually trying to convince someone of an argument that differs from their own (kinda like politics, except about Jedi in bathing suits).

Either Light or Dark is determined by the in-story choices that you make as a Sith Warrior during that character's interaction with Jaesa, from the moment... As far as I am aware, however, only Sith warriors may have Jaesa as a companion.

I had to suppress a sob of joy when I popped into Vandin the first time. All I've been getting in lowbies is 4x4 arenas, and I despise those. So if it means I'm not in an execrable 4x4, bring it on, and I won't complain.

I'm no programmer, but I would imagine it shouldn't be all that difficult to alter the 8x8 maps to accept fewer people on each side. Granted, a 4x4 Hypergate would be...interesting...but a 4x4 Huttball would be completely worth the time, and a 4x4 Novare Coast would require some fast thinking and creative decisions. Even if it wasn't the most optimum of experiences, I would greatly prefer this to a 4x4 arena (I loathe arenas - bad enough that 4x4 is all we get for Ranked). BioWare seems to just keep kicking the Huttball. We certainly aren't being given the opportunity to do that (until we hit 70, it seems).

Wouldn't that skip a day and be Revenge of the Sixth?

I agree. It isn't being handed out like candy on All Hallows, so I don't see the issue. So someone else managed to get Darth Hexid. That's nice. Doesn't affect how I play my game one way or the other.

I can't possibly agree more. My LS trooper was willing to so I think the option should be there to have her as a companion. As for Koth? I'm probably one of those rare souls who doesn't care either way. His constant excuse-making for Vitiate (Valkorian) pretty much caused me to switch him off as someone to even worry about. My LS characters will do LS things regardless of his opinion, my DS characters will do DS things, up to and including putting Koth in whatever passes for a pine box, regardless of his opinion. Whatever the Austin studio does with him, they don't have to worry about giving me a heads-up first.

Agree with everything here. It's probably best to just make them available to all, and be done with it. I can't say in all honesty that I'd use either one, but if someone else wants to use them, who am I to say "no, you can't"? Doesn't affect my game in the least who uses which companion. Their nickel.

This wasn't a premade, it was completely random. If that sort of thing works out for you and your mates, I suppose that's one thing, so I can't really speak to your example, but to randomly use it on someone in a PUG is, well, an opinion that might get me banned from the forums. Even if you already have the codex entry, being the one to hit the datacore still adds to your score. I would not blame the one (keeping this post at least marginally on-topic) being yanked back for dropping out of any group they found themselves in that also contained the one who would do such a thing. Messing with your friends is one thing - doing it to a randomly-placed PUG teammate is poor manners, at best.

Yes...and that's borne out every day, with Massive Multiples of players online at any given time. But that isn't what he's referring to. That, however, is accurate.

Never experienced that, though I have seen someone yanked back by an inquisitor on the way to the Voidstar datacore. A time-out for PVP is perhaps the one thing that could be done to persuade me to drop my subscriptions (I have two). If I could opt out of non-ranked arenas (which I despise...not fond of ranked ones, but what can you do), Odessen (before I finish Fallen Empire...after I'm the Outlander, I will play it), and disable becoming a backfill, I would have no need to worry about dropping. If they're going to smack me with a penalty for not playing things I dislike, I'm certainly not going to pay them for the "privilege". I'm more than willing to go back to Everquest if it comes to that.

Vanilla companions in vanilla content...no. That ship has sailed. As much as the choice should have been there at the start, it's a waste of time, effort, and money to go back and re-do it. Can vanilla companions become SGR possibilities? I don't see why not. When you had the choice of Dorne or Quinn, the option should be an eventual possibility. Same with Corso and Risha. Maybe not right away, but why not eventually? For myself, Lana was a breath of fresh air - my sorceress did not romance Andronikos, and even if SGR's had been available, would not have romanced Ashara, as I dislike both of them. Any more "fresh air" will be a welcome addition.

Considering they have the models for the characters in question already, and it would take little effort to actually make them into Companions, it would be a simple matter to designate certain companions for acquisition in-game to all subscribers (be subscribed by June 15th, get Lord Cytherat, then be subscribed by October 1st, get Ava Jaxo, and so on), and then place certain others for sale on the Cartel Market (the way they have a couple of quadrupedal companions there already, along with Treek). There are ways for them to make a pile of money with new companions if they play their cards right. The question is: Will they?

If someone wants Vaylin as a companion, knock yourself out. I'll pass, thanks. However... *Watcher One (Jedi Knight storyline) is someone I'd like to have along. *Ki Sazen (Agent storyline) would be fun, and she's got way more personality than most. *Celvanta Grathan (Warrior storyline) would be amusing. *Some of Vette's twi'lek friends/relatives would make good tag-alongs. *"The Menace" (Agent storyline) would... Lots of interesting possibilities.

This is true (about APAC). While I play out of the West Coast, my very first level 50 was on Gav Daragon, and I joined a guild full of some of the most lovely people I've ever met online (and I have been playing online games since the original Everquest. These days, logging into Satele Shan formerly Harbinger formerly Gav Daragon shows maybe three people in guild during peak hours, as opposed to over a hundred during the APAC days. No one says anything, it's like we all just happen to be in the same guild, and our guild sponsors have given up and left (which they probably have). I have a good provider, and I've never had much in the way of issues reaching any server that SWTOR runs, but if people are leaving the game, all the good connections in the world mean nothing.

Too many pages to read... I'll preface by saying I have two accounts, qualified for HK-55 on both, and have occasionally used him in my Outlander's travels (I have two Outlanders, the freebies I was given, one on each account). Having said that, HK-55 is...well, okay. I really do like his dialogue, but it's the same VA as HK-51, which I did once for each account, and then bought server transfers to transfer HK-51 so I would never have to do that wretched search for droid parts ever again. I would not have an issue with the idea of HK-55 being offered again under a specific set of conditions (ironically, I would have an issue with them offering, say, Ranos, Hexid, and so forth). Perhaps those people who have already met the HK-55 conditions the first time around could instead be given a "replacement"? Say, one of the Gemini Captains? Just a thought.

This is it exactly. Thank you. A "new character" provides no option for retaining those things which a character has already earned. An old Imperial character who defeated Yadira Ban in the Black Talon, for example, received an "Epic Enemies" codex entry, for example - but those codex entries, for whatever pointless reason, were made unavailable to obtain after a certain date, even if you did the Black Talon and defeated her. I've heard no suggestions as to how to obtain things like this if you start a "new character." "Start a new character" is an exceedingly unhelpful suggestion.

That is your opinion, and I will acknowledge that it is your opinion. I do not agree, obviously. If that is the sort of game you are looking for, where stuff is handed out like candy, be my guest. I don't think you'll find it here, though - unless you count Outlander tokens and the Master's Datacron. The only "automatic Outlanders" I have are the two I got "gratis" on my accounts, and all other Outlanders I obtain are/will be obtained the old-fashioned way...which is sort of the point of wanting the class change token. It doesn't just give you free levels and stuff - all it does is make a change. If you're opposed to leveling up the old-fashioned way, I can't help you. You are correct to a point, and that is the entire idea behind the token. They (say, a Jedi Knight) started off on a common footing, and leveled up the same way to 10th level. A sentinel had X skills, a juggernaut had Y skills, and you knew what to expect once you took the leap at 10. You would have X as a sentinel, and Y as a juggernaut. Now, am I saying that just because I would not change my sentinel and marauder to their heavy-armor counterparts, that others would not? Of course not. But frankly, I couldn't care less if someone does or not. I am just not enough of a control freak to care. If you were playing, say, a trooper, at 10 you got X plus Y as a commando, and X plus Z as a vanguard...but X was never radically altered between tank and healer - both could DPS quite well with certain abilities in common. Now, not so much (the "in common" part). And I still fail to see why another person should be so adamantly against something which doesn't concern them. We've already established that nothing would be "taken away" from what EAWare is doing - because they're doing very little in that vein at the moment, anyways, and such a token would signify one thing for them, and one thing only - namely money. They toss the OP's token on the market, and make money when we buy Cartel Coins to purchase it...which, in the end, is what they're concerned about.

Level 70 token is pretty much irrelevant to this discussion, as it really isn't what we're discussing, plus any bug fixers, as well as those working on, as you call it, "needed things" are unlikely the ones to be working on the token (if they were to ever do it). The ones working on the token would more likely as not be the ones otherwise coding the latest ridiculous outfit for the Cartel Market, so I can't say you've presented a convincing argument there. Not exactly a ringing bell. If you were to make the case that EAWare often proves incapable of finding their hindquarters in dim light with both hands when it comes to improving the game, then sure, you might have a case. That would pretty much be it, though.

That's a valid point - but that would be what the token the OP proposes would be designed to address, and get the character "back on track", as it were. I have still heard no logical argument why this is a bad idea, since the people disparaging the OP's idea would (a) not be affected in the least, and (b) wouldn't use it anyways. That example falls under what I said under the marauder/sentinel - since a shaman is nowhere even remotely similar to a demon hunter, that's comparing apples and phosphorus grenades.