Possibly SI spoilers, so going to tag it just in case. It does, however, have a very good ending. I was thoroughly entranced for all of Corellia. I personally think both sides of Bounty Hunter make sense (although your companions will be difficult if you are dark side), but you kind of have to view Light Side as more warrior-y Mandalorian 'honorable' rather than 'good guy.' I haven't done Corellia yet, but everything prior to that makes sense to me, and I am a predominately LS BH.

I'm kind of deadened to his antics, considering that as a tank specced shadow, I more or less don't have a choice about bringing him most of the time (particularly in late game -- you know, where you get your slightly more interesting companions). I do like how the guy who has no patience for 'Jedi nonsense' thought it would be a good idea to join up with the most by the book Jedi archetype ever though. I facepalm every time he -1s me when I use force persuade, or say anything about Jedi. Dude, I'm a Jedi. OF COURSE I AM GOING TO DO JEDI THINGS YOU ****.

Bounty Hunter is my favorite Empire story. It's hard to say which is actually the BEST one is though, because it really depends on where you're at on each. IA is pretty boring on Taris for instance, while both BH and SW have cool storylines there. Only the Inquisitor really gets left in the dust.

A neutral faction would be cool, or a story in which Smuggler/BH played both sides of the fence occasionally. And for those citing storyline issues and 'the republic would never hire a bounty hunter.' lol. Like someone else said, maybe that's what they'd say on the campaign trail, but in reality they'd do whatever it took. And there's no good reason not to hire BHs if you're already hiring smugglers, as they are both of questionable morality and generally move in the same circles (the only difference being that the archetypal smuggler for SW was a good guy, and the archetypal bounty hunter was a villain). Choice to go to the republic though? Absolutely. I'd love to bring righteous vengeance down on some of the annoying, whiny, cir.cle jerking (that's considered profanity? really, bioware?) imperial players on my server.

Blizz for romance option. Wait, what? (ilu mako)

I hate Skadge, but I would never make a topic asking why we have to take him, because it's not like you can ever be given an adequate answer ("Because that's the way it is"). He doesn't fit the way I play my character, but every class has at least one of those. Imperial Agents arguably have it just as bad: if you play an agent that is actually for the Empire, and doesn't engage in casual evil for the lulz (you know, the most canonically believable version of the character), you are stuck for 32-ish levels with a violent, anarchistic sociopath before you even get a second option. You don't even GET a true DS companion as a Consular. Skadge at least fits a certain niche. And as others have pointed out, he makes at least as much sense as Gault (and probably more, because GAULT IS A THIEF AND A CONMAN WHY ARE YOU LETTING HIM ON YOUR SHIP ARGH). Skadge feels like someone you might partner with for a brief time, out of mutual convenience. Gault was simply forced on you for not even the tinniest whisper of a reason, other than 'need new companion, here you go.' To be honest though, I do prefer the in-game interpretation of the Bounty Hunter to the general relentlessly, almost pointlessly evil and underhanded Star Wars version. I was even pleasantly surprised when I got it, because usually BioWare is all over making things as dark as humanly possible without breaking real world laws. A lot of things in the Star Wars universe are not sustainable, even with a certain helping of suspension of disbelief. No group can be 100% evil 100% of the time (and actually, even some of the listed BHs in this thread weren't as evil as advertised). In a perfect world of course, they'd have made two versions of the class stories (to account for the light and dark archetypes), that you somehow selected between early on like your advanced class, so that everyone could get what they wanted out of it, and Skadge even could have been your first companion on the evil path, instead of the High Morals Brigade (although I totally love Mako, and have no plans to ever dismiss her). Different sets of companions could have alleviated the amounts of *** people will invariably suffer at one point or another, as it would have been easier to reason them into the story, instead of throwing them at you and being like DON'T ASK. But, you know, wish in one hand, blah blah tangent tangent.

I like Vette, though exactly why she continues to hang out with you if you take her collar off is a mystery. She hates it when you defer to Imperials/Sith, hates it when you follow Baras' orders, hates it when you kill anyone, ever (Mako and Ashara, also LS companions, will make exceptions depending on the situation). Basically she seems to not like anything about what you are, but simply doesn't leave. She's kind of like a reverse Kaliyo (anti-authoritarian sociopath partners with the most patriotic class in the game!). Honestly, I feel like, personal alignment aside, it would make more sense storywise if she and Kaliyo were to switch places. I mean, I'm predominately a LS warrior (well, I'm actually neutral, but that's because I make up for my LS decisions with Diplomacy most of the time >_> ), and she still complains about what I do, though she also apparently has the hots for me (wut?). Also, lol@ the 'most people play republic to be good' bit way back in the thread. Clearly you have never seen all the red sabers over there.

Having the option to turn her would be pretty cool, since Xalek is pretty damned boring (why did I not have the option to agree with Harkun?). But at the same time, I do like the dynamic that her attitude balances out/'redeems' (as someone else put it) the SI if you romance her. I don't know where else that happens. Sure, Jaesa can be turned either way, but she's only romanceable as dark and clownishly evil, and the story, whether you romance her or not, really isn't that deep. Although in a perfect world, you could customize Ashara (and probably other companions in the game, particularly apprentices/padawans), I do appreciate that she's more neutral, since that fits with how I play, and I very very rarely ever get minuses from her. So, cool thing to add one day. But not gonna break my experience. I do like Ashara as is.

Consular can be a bad guy too. See all those jedi with red sabers? Yeah, that. Although we can always do with a little more condescension, I doubt that has very much to do with it.

Voice is boring Companions are boring. Initial companions for both are equally crappy, but at least Andronikos has some depth. Tharan's depth is that he wanks to a hologram. Yuon Par does nothing for you. Ever. She seriously must be the most useless master in history. My dude has pretty much raised himself here. Yuon Par is a far more boring character than Zash. Zash seemingly at least does things off screen, and has an agenda. Yuon Par sits on her ***, or lays in a bed, and she doesn't say much besides 'save your old granny's friends, would you dearie?' Consular does not seem to get any characterization. Maybe this is a direct consequence of both boring companions/master and boring story. Hard to be a masterfully woven character in a story that was seemingly written for a five year old.

lol. Well said. I don't mind silvers most of the time. I had a blast throughout almost all of the leveling experience, which included me killing uncounted thousands of silver mobs along the way. But the last few planets seems to hit you with them relentlessly, and they have annoying CC, and/or are large walls of health. I theorize that BW is trying to motivate people to learn how to use their CC, so they will be better players at 50 doing level 50 things. But there is no transition, no warning, you just go from being able to cut through stuff at a decent pace, to spending huge amounts of time getting through one group, and then looking at the 20 other identical groups you are going to need to get past to get to the little green dot on your map. As someone else said, even with CC, the sudden hike in difficulty makes you feel like you're doing something wrong, and like you've suddenly become bad. I ended up looking on the forums for that specific reason. I wrote a post that began with 'Am I doing something wrong here?' I like difficulty just fine. I spend longer than I needed to trying to strategize ways to solo heroic quests, just because it's a good feeling when you manage to succeed. That good feeling is absent when it's just regular stuff.

Absolutely dumb that this can happen on a pve server. I recall it happening in pve servers on WoW too. Especially when a new expansion hit, you'd get some guild of apparent pvpers sitting flagged by quest mobs and trying to get hit by aoes, and crowd your targeting while you looted (or get tab targeted) so you'd get flagged and they could gank you. And that is the reason I hate pve servers. You don't really get rid of pvp, you just get douchier people trying to do it because they can't hack it in a pvp environment, so they go somewhere to pick on people. They should definitely do away with getting flagged off accidental aoe. Don't think they should get rid of open world pvp altogether though. Just enable some system that forces consent (several have been suggested), and turn off the ability for aoes to hit flagged targets from unflagged. (as a side note, I play on a pvp server, so I'm not whining here)