I lol'd.

Honestly there should never be a need to have more than 2 companions geared, since you can't dual spec. My tank jugger is 50, and thank god I never had to use anyone other than a dps or Quinn (the healer), and the dps I chose to gear I was never unable to choose. I have 2 companions I never summoned to the world, and never had to (as they were simply redundant). I know where my sorc is (level 27), I was just forced to use a "guest" - I haven't progressed very far, so I don't know how it will go, but Khem is geared perfectly for my healer sorc - I hope this new one doesn't disappoint. Also - if you are crafter/gatherer - you can't gear companions on your ship if they are out on missions. Mine tend to always be out, so the ship thing doesn't fly, and on the ship if you hover over an item in your inventory with a crew member up on the character sheet, it doesn't auto compare, since they're not in your party. I have plenty of times said "eff it" when trying to see if something is useful for one of the 3 I don't ever use because of the lack of auto-repair and them being on a mission meaning I can't equip it anyway. And now that I'm 50, those 3 will never see a gear increase because I will never have a need for them, except as mission bots. The companion who is the only one able to take the role you can NOT take should NEVER be unavailable, unless the quest(s) it happens on is laughably easy without that role covered. Bioware did something similar in Dragon Age 2, and it was dumb there, too.

I honestly believe that's because you can queue for a warzone, but you can't queue for PvE (which is, IMO, another bad decision on Bioware's part - so much content simply not seen by those who want to because they don't have a tank (or heals) in their guild, on at that time, in the correct level range, and can't find one by spamming /general).

The fact that WoW is 7 years old means nothing. Well, it means that Bioware had 7 years of Blizzard's failures to use as a base to design TOR around (and in many cases simply ignored the collective experience of all MMO's, with WoW being at the forefront). But ultimately it doesn't matter how old either game is. What matters is what the games are like NOW, as your choice (if choosing between WoW and TOR) is to play WoW as it is now, or play TOR as it is now. Some leeway can be given for things such as number of raids/flashpoints/quests/etc - content, as content builds over time, and bugs will happen. But basic design decisions and implementation, such as funky chat windows in TOR, completely uncustomizable UI in TOR, horrid LFG tool in TOR (worse than EQ2's was over 7 years ago), and other similar non-content things don't require gradual improvements over the years. For example - Bioware was in no way required to design a 1999-era UI, and then over the coming years gradually bring it up to modern standards. They could have simply started with an aim to provide a modern UI and then given us one. Rift did. But Bioware CHOSE to include a nearly feature-less UI for some unknown (to all but them) reason. Same thing can be said about dual specs and a LFD tool. I have never seen a statement from Bioware about why neither feature is included (and I don't want to turn this into a debate on the merits of either being included or not), but many people find these features incredibly useful in other games, and are surprised they are not here. The lack of either makes me think of this game as unnecessarily "old", and I suspect if both were added (or had been included at launch), more people would be happier than not. By a huge margin. I know the lonely group mobs around the TOR world would be excited by a bit of company.

If you had pointed people to cnet instead of the designer's website, people may be less likely to think you are shilling. That was my first though (and no, I did not go to the website simply because I assumed it wouldn't be free, and that you worked for them).

I know no one cares what any individual is going to do, but I simply won't PvP at 50 with the current system. I PvP'd a lot in WoW (shaman pvp geared every tier since late BC, and when I stopped during 4.2 I had a rated geared shaman and 3 other honor geared toons), and I simply always hated the gear grind with each tier that was released, mostly due to resilience. So I am not at all unfamiliar with the PvP gear grind, having done it (combined toons) around 100 times, give or take, in WoW. When I saw that expertise was in ToR, I was disappointed (just as I was with Rift and Valor or whatever it is called). I tried PvP in ToR (as I do in all games), and found it pretty fun, if laggy (compared to my rigs performance in every other area of the game), and was rank 30 valor when I dinged 50 on my Juggernaut. Only when I hit 50 and opened those first half dozen bags did I learn about the RNG system from the bags - when I got nothing (well 18 coms). That was the moment I decided that this, for me, is a completely worthless system. The gear grind is painful yet doable when you know your goal and what it takes to achieve it. That is simply not possible in this game, and so I feel that honestly it is simply not worth doing. Warzones will continue to be a fun diversion from repeating all the planet quests while leveling alts, but RNG gear drops just make a bad thing (gear grind) even worse. Again, I know that no one cares that I, personally, am boycotting it, but I also know that many others think like me.

If you are going to pvp at 50, convert warzone commendations to merc ones until you have 1000 merc coms, at the very least. If you are going to buy the level 40 gear, before 1.1 it cost 1295 (for my toon) for all 9 pieces, and it's gone up. You can buy pieces early (as your warzone coms cap at 1000), so you that you can have a full set the moment you ding 40. Also, if possible, plan to have 1000 merc and warzone coms at 50, as well as 1 purchased bag (I assume after 1.1 it's still unique and can't be opened until 50, and they also cost 200/200). That way you have 6 chances at gear when you ding 50.

Even though I agree with the vast majority of the OP's criticisms of the game, I am still having fun. There is a lot wrong with this game, in terms of modern MMO design, yet it IS still fun to play (so I am subscribed for at least 1 paid month). Quite a few of the design decisions in this game would have been considered subpar in 2004 when EQ 2 and WoW came out (as in, systems in those games were better when they launched than they are in ToR now). But I am still having fun. I attribute the fun I am having to my guild, which just so happens to have 3 level 50 tanks (me being one of them) and 3 level 50 healers. Unfortunately we did not level at the same rate, so most of us did no level-appropriate group content from around 20 until 50. But with 3 tanks and 3 heals at 50, as well as around 10 dps, we are almost always having 2 groups going in the evenings, and has allowed us to avoid the awful LFG "tool" this game has (since we've all hit 50). I feel sorry for people not in the same situation, as the game truly does have awful grouping tools (and so much group content). Overall, the game seems to be aimed at casual gamers, yet has so many impediments to the casual gamer experiencing so much of the content, that it's baffling. I do take issue with the OP's criticisms of the questing. However simple the quests may be (and all quests in all games are simple), Bioware has done the best job in covering the simplicity up that I've seen (AC 1, EQ 2, FFXI, WoW, Vanguard, Warhammer are past MMOs, with most of my experience in WoW, followed by FFXI). The MMO part of the game does feel very outdated, but like I said before, I am still having fun - though I had to simply stop PvPing at 50, as my server has few queuers, and 3 premades that are full on expertise geared - pvp stats should simply die.

I am not 100% up on all the crafting skills, but from what I can see, the majority of them are rather useless at level 50. I am myself Biochem/Bionanalysis/Diplomacy and I think I made a very good choice (I'm also a Juggernaut tank). At 50 there are enhancements that cost daily commendations, so whatever makes enhancements (I believe artifice, but could be wrong) wouldn't help you there. Hilts as well. Biochem will also make you implants, but the big draw, especially for leveling, but also at 50, are the purple reusable stims/adrenals/medpacks. I have yet to have an actual need for any crafted armor pieces (helm/chest/legs/feet/hands), or weapon, as mods cover those spots nicely (I'm not raiding yet, though). The only items I am having a hard time getting decent level 50 pieces for are my saber crystal and my shield. But that's as much to do with the lack of AH usage on my server as anything.

Thank you for replying. (a bit more interaction on the various problems the game has would not be a bad thing)

I think people who say this are, to put it bluntly, either deluded or liars. The community here is no better and no worse than the current community in WoW, or the community Rift had at launch (when there was no LFD tool). By "community" I mean people who aren't in my guild, or aren't people I already know (people on my friends list but not in my guild) - the random people I simply don't know. Nothing change, that I could see, in WoW, once LFD was added - except that people ran dungeons more. There were tards before, and tards after LFD. There were ninja looters before, and ninja looters after LFD. Trade didn't change, except the sudden lack of "LF1M tank for Occulus" spam. For myself, in this game, I can get groups with guildmates at 50. Last night, for example, we had 12 people in vent. 3 tanks, 3 healers and 6 dps. It was perfect, and we ran 3 4 man groups. But from 20 until 50 - the lack of people (well, healers, as I'm a tank) in my level range in my guild meant spamming /general looking for a healer. Quite frankly, that sucks. It sucked in WoW, and they did something about it. And was nearly always a waste of time. I prefer not to waste my time. I also have a 27 sorc healer, and have the exact opposite problem - no tanks - so don't tell me "roll a healer" or "roll a tank", because that's all I have is healers and tanks (a 17 op healer and another jugger - only 22, though). If, on a given night, we have 3 level 50 tanks and only 1 level 50 healer online, and as a guild we want to run 4 mans, I can promise you that 2 of the 3 tanks (and all but 2 of the DPS) will be cursing the lack of an LFD system, or dual specs. And about grouping with people you don't like - well at least in WoW, if you put someone on ignore, you don't get them again. After running hundreds and hundreds of random LFDs in WoW (though, to be fair, the majority of mine were with a partial guild run - just missing a tank - as my level capped toons there are resto shaman, resto druid, disc priest and also a frost DK), the total number of what I would call "tards" was very few - less than 2 dozen. I would like to point out that someone who's simply "not good" isn't someone I refuse to group with. Ninja looters and random chat spammers are those I'd consider "tards", but someone simply unskilled simply needs to be taught. And it's ok to help new players even if they're from another server and you're likely to never see them again. Very, VERY few players in the WoW LFD system are actually douchebags - but the anti-LFD people seem to think 2 of the 4 they randomly get grouped with are, every single time. Anyways, I simply don't believe that LFD "destroys communities" because over 2 years of LFD in WoW, on my server, showed no sudden decline in the "community", and while the number of douchbags I ran 5 mans with may have increased, the number of PEOPLE I ran 5 mans with increased by a much higher percentage.

The existing LFG "feature" will also randomly change your note, as well. I had thought it was zoning to a new planet, but that's not the case, as I have looked at the zone list and seen my note (which will say Tank on my jugg or Heals on my sorc) change without me having done any zoning. And sometimes I can zone and it not change. I don't know what causes the note to be reset, but the fact that it does (seemingly) randomly reset means the note feature is useless.

I seem to have (I say seem to, because 1.1 reset many of my settings, and I think I have them exactly how they were before the patch now) better overall performance, but more "ability lag". Some of the new "ability lag" I attribute to the new cooldown countdown graphic (which is awful), as the longer CD abilities look like they're off CD before they actually are, so they seem to delay when they probably aren't, but are actually in the last 1 or 2 seconds of their 30 or 60 second cooldown timer. But some very short CD abilities (specifically disruption on my juggernaut), that I KNOW are not on CD seemingly don't want to fire all the time, and if it was happening before 1.1, it's drastically worse now. Like I can hit disrupt when I KNOW it's not on CD 2 or 3 times while an ability is being cast, and I don't interrupt that ability at all, but I do get the next one (if the mob chains a next one, otherwise my cooldown is just wasted). I have not tried warfronts since 1.1 (as the RNG gearing is simply stupid and I don't want to go into 50-only WZ's so undergeared, even though I've opened more bags than people with drastically better gear than I have have opened - because they're lucky and I'm not - expertise is simply too good in this game and shouldn't have been used.), but I was having really bad ability lag and FPS drop in WZs before the patch.

Agreed. I have a hope that NOT having a forum for each individual server AT THIS TIME is a sign that the servers that no longer ever get heavy will be merged soon (my server has not been heavy this year yet). I guess it's my fault for picking a server that was "only" heavy when I logged in the first time, but I kinda wanted to play instead of queue.

It may handle group questing flawlessly (which it does), but it sure as hell makes forming a group a royal PITA. For everything that TOR has improved on, there's 3 or 4 things that have taken major steps backwards compared to other MMOs, and I think that's the heart of most people's complaints. To take group questing as an example - it IS smooth as hell doing group quests in a group, with group cutscenes. But the LFG tool is subpar in comparision to EQ 2's LFG tool when that game launched (in late 2004), not to mention the myriad of improvements in all MMOs since then (and yes, I DO consider the LFD tool in WoW and Rift an improvement to things - the amount of ******s I encountered in hundreds and hundreds of queues was less than 20, easily - and "community" should not = spamming /general LF1M heals (or tank) for x dungeon). So, while group questing is improved in TOR vs other games, grouping as a whole is quite a bit worse than those same games. Or take PvP - the addition of Huttball (a same-faction warzone) is great - as it allows instanced PvP even with faction imbalances. But the copy of a pvp stat (expertise is resilience) showed no innovation at all, and the complete RNG aspect of getting PvP gear is amazingly outdated (and I really don't want to go into Ilum both pre and post 1.1). Add in that the engine apparantly has major issues for many people in PvP (or the zone designs cause whatever FPS drop so many have), and PvP, as a whole, is worse than other games, even though it does have a big improvement. So many things like that in this game, and then you read Ohlen's quotes, and I wonder how much of what he says he actually believes.

This is really the heart of it. I love Bioware games. I love their stories. But in the month that I've been playing TOR, I see no real indication that they are prepared to run an MMO. The UI is just one of the little things among many that tell me they don't think like MMO developers, but still are thinking like a single player developer. The fact that the default UI has only 2 movable and resizable items (chat box and raid frames) shows they seemingly unaware of what other MMOs offer. Now that can't be true, but it sure looks that way. Tell me - what good is it to let me move my chat frames if I have no where to actually move them TO, because nothing else is movable? Or that I don't have enough spaces on my 2 bottom bars for all of my in-combat abilities? The little video does not indicate that we will be able to add a 5th hotbar, and does not indicate that we will be able to resize hotbars. I have no idea why, at this point, anyone would have faith that Bioware is going to add more features than what was shown, based on their brief handling of things in TOR so far. The Ilum fiasco this week, and lack of timely response tells me they're simply not prepared to handle problems well (and that they have some of the worst PvP developers in the history of MMOs). It's great that we got a new Flashpoint this week, but it wasn't actually needed. The ability to actually know when my long cooldowns are up, however, was functional and now it isn't. My ability delay seems worse (but overall my performance seems better - though I haven't tried a warzone since 1.1) than before 1.1, especially any interrupt.

Actually, yes, you do. You look at your choice in MMO and choose one. The choice is between the games that exist right now. This is why no MMO has come close to WoW, well, ever. People want to play a good, fun game. They don't want to say "well, in 7 years this game will be good, so I'll have faith". Rift was not a bad game in anyway that I could tell. It was a little bit weaker than WoW in nearly every aspect, but much closer to WoW than ToR is (by this I mean system design, bugginess and general technical qualities). The biggest problem Rift had was that it had no "hook" that would make people think "this game is a bit subpar compared to WoW, but it has X feature that makes up for it and is enough for me to switch games". ToR does have that "hook". It's called Lightsabers (or the Star Wars universe). And also the Bioware single player quests (which are light years ahead of quests in any other MMO). But as a game (systems, technical design, pvp system design, bugs, performance, lack of LFD and dual specs) it is so far behind WoW that I don't know if the hooks will keep people waiting for the game to "get good". If the setting of ToR was a generic fantasy setting (nearly identical to WoW and Rift and Warhammer and EQ2 and every other MMO out there), and the quests were as generic as any of those games, do you think ANYONE would have hope this game would succeed? The UI is subpar for a current MMO. The performance is awful compared to Rift and WoW. There are more bugs than I ever remember encountering in Rift (1 free month, 1 paid month, 2 max level toons). The PvP system (and patches) are god awful, with RNG for loot, and a merciless grind, as well as massive performance drops the moment many people enter warzones. ToR DOES have Lightsabers and Bioware single player quests, but as a technical game, I can't think of a worse one (maybe Vanguard) I've ever played.

As far as I can tell, this is now worse. I don't know if it's the new cooldown display or just worse delay, but as a jugg, my force choke and ravage never seem to work when they appear they should, and I do not always get "ability not ready yet" message when they don't go off. I'm also getting it on disruption a lot tonight. Very frustrating.

I'd love to get off my low pop server (that was high the moment I created my char there - and hasn't been high, that I've noticed, since Dec 26) and on a decently populated one. I don't know what defines Light, Standard and Heavy, but mine is perpetually Standard during my play time (9p - 1a M-F evenings, EST), and nearly every area, bar the Fleet, feels dead empty. This is on either my 27 sorc or my 50 juggernaut. As my Juggernaut is a tank and my Sorc is heals, I figured I'd have 50% of the hard to find spec covered on either character, but not until guildmates started hitting 50 on their heals was I able to reliably find groups for group content. Between 20 and 50 I did 1 night of grouping (somewhere around 45). On my heals now, trying to do heroics or flashpoints - it's the same problem - never a tank around (and none in my guild have tanks in that level range). From what little I've seen, the group content while leveling up is fund to do. But low pop, poor LFG tool and no dual specs means it simply isn't being seen. In the long run, my 50 will be fine, as my guild coming together nicely now, but I doubt I ever see group content below level 50 on any alt, on my server, at the appropriate level due to the impediments to forming a group in this game.

I have preferred the red faction since Warcraft 1. The first time I saw the tileset of Alliance buildings, I simply thought that was the ugliest design I'd ever seen, and chose Orcs whenever I could. As WoW used the same graphic design, and ugly human male models as well (plus the fact that I really think Dwarves are just awful looking in every game I've seen them in), Horde was a no-brainer. Did you SEE the graphics in Warhammer for Order? Specifically the Dwarves and Elves? That's a very good lesson in how to make an uninteresting faction look as dull as possible. EQ 2 - who's more interesting - Lucan or Antonia? As for SWTOR - I don't know about anyone else - but while I LOVE lightsaber combat in the Star Wars movies, I simply can't think of a single interesting, personality-wise, Jedi in any of the movies, except for perhaps Yoda. Luke was interesting (although whiny) until the moment he "became a true Jedi". Mace Windu - dull as can be. True, Star Wars is all about over-the-top character arch-types, but I don't really want to be playing (or playing through the story of) extreme versions of the D&D Lawful Good Paladins. I'd prefer not playing extreme versions of Chaotic Evil, but given the choice of the two, it's a no brainer. Plus the Sith simply look cooler in their armor. Years, as well as game after game, show that I'm in the majority, yet developers keep simply NOT TAKING THAT INTO ACCOUNT. And seem baffled when there's faction imbalance. Why are these developers still employed as developers?

I have never heard of Brutality.

While close, I'd like to bring up the look of pretty much all of the Order side of Warhammer at launch - especially Swordmasters (loldresses) and Runemasters. Another game that seemed to go out of it's way to make the inherently "cool" faction look even cooler, and the inherently "dull" faction as dull as possible - leading to the inevitable faction imbalance.

That's all /general chat is on my server on Fleet. /general on any planet is, basically, quiet, with the occasional "LF1M for generic Heroic 4 - need tank (or heals)". With no dual spec and no at least decent LFG tool, this game that so clearly looks like it's intended for casuals is very anti-casual (someone who doesn't have hours every single night) to actually play the group content in. For me, the group content basically didn't exist on my way to 50, once I passed 20. My guild had 3 tanks and about 10 dps at the high end of the level curve (we've been 50 for over a week), but not a single healer until we recruited one when most of us were around 45. It's actually fun to do the group content in this game - but the chances of a casual doing it (well, the PvE stuff - the PvP was insta-queue all the way up) is near zero passed Drommund Kaas (on my server). Many times it's not a case of not enough people wanting to do something, but not enough of the right classes - and many of these people would have a 2nd spec (heals or tank), except, well, they can't. The lack of a LFD tool (even if server only) AND dual spec, in 2012, is, to me, simply mind-boggling.

The reimplementation of the search function was rolled back. Probably unintentionally.

Untick tracking it. I have no idea why, but ever since I did that, I've not had a win not count. If I forget to untrack it, invariably (well not today, as I didn't get a warzone) the first win never counts.