This is a ridiculous download. Still have 18GB to go with no end in sight.

My favorite pastimes in game are pretty much the basics of questing, exploring, gathering, and farming mobs. Then, usually after a month or two, I'll start a new character, often in a class I haven't played recently, and do it again.

To be honest, none of this need be true for all. I travel a great deal, and I often find myself dining solo. Sure, it's nice to have company, but it can also be nice to be alone. A good restaurant is a good restaurant, solo or in group. Your mileage, of course, may vary. many folks will always prefer company. Others may prefer to dine alone. So is a good game. I don't necessarily argue that operations should be soloable, but your arguments as to why they should not be soloable don't make much sense to me. In another AAA quality MMO, raids can be soloed, more often than not, after severely outgeared, so players can experience the content solo if they are willing to wait for the next expansion. All the boss mechanics are still there, and having done many raids in raid groups and later, in solo, the experiences of both are interesting in their own ways. All it takes for something like this to happen are relaxed auto-level ranging and avoiding the types of "puzzle" mechanics that require multiple items to be manipulated by multiple players simultaneously.

As a Vet, I'd like to thank those who have good words for us on this day and at any time, for that matter. I'd point out tho that although many of us sacrificed in our service, the real heroes...the ones that really should be thanked, are the ones who never came back, and the ones who left too much of themselves "over there".

A general comment here: I'm a casual player. I don't understand most of the technical discussion here, but I do understand that if we are going to be limited to filling trees, that's boring. I like building hybrids, and I WANT to be able to do that. It's hard to see how limiting choices makes a better game.

Like everyone else here, I'd like to concentrate on the things that annoy me the most: -Crafting system is horrible for folks who are leveling. Creating anything i9nteresting costs too much and is so random that there is no way to calculate opportunity costs. As it stands, the system only benefits folks who have essentially unlimited financial resources. -The GTN is a mess to use, when anything is on it to start with, which brings me to: The economy, at least on my severely underpopulated server, is nearly nonexistent, and the NPC vendors are severely limited in what they sell, and drop itemization often makes no sense. I'd take a long look at the entire economics/crafting/itemization system.

If you want to help, do so by buffing and healing, and let them do the fighting. Buffs and heals are obvious helps, can't be construed as anything else. Besides, dropping an hour long class buff is going to help them far more than 1sk-ing the mob they were fighting. If they wanted help, they will appreciate it. If they didn't want help, you were still able to help without offense. And here is why unsolicited mob killing is so annoying to some of us: I spent a great deal of time systematically clearing out a room to get to an elite. I was about half done when a group of 3 players, on their way to somewhere else, slaughtered everything else, including the set of mobs I was fighting, and was gone as quickly as they came. Gee thanks. The point wasn't to kill the mobs per se, but it was to do it in the most tactically proficient way possible. That experience was ruined by folks who were honestly trying to help me, or who were trying to grief me, or who just didn't care about me. Which was it? A buff and a wave in passing would have been neat. What they did was not.

What are the plans for providing alternate leveling progressions in terms of quests and planets, so as to reduce the repetition of leveling alts?

Well, back in the day of MuDs, if someone tried that you would "solve" the problem by hunting him down and PKing his butt. He'd come back with friends (or never be seen again) and you would come back with firend, and a nice roleplay (with real emotions of ill intent) feud would go on for awhile until it wasn't fun anymore. These days, people act like jerks because there is nothing stopping them.

My first MMO was Gemstone, played on AOL, and charged by the hour. Very social, roleplay was everything, and the mechanics were far more unforgiving then even Everquest. I logged thousands of hours...probably tens of thousands over a decade or so, in that game, you you can still play it today. MuDs for the win. I play this game mostly solo because I can not guarantee how long a play session will be, nor can I schedule gameplay times. Sometimes i can play all day, and sometimes I won't be able to play for a month. Most guilds can't handle that, and things like raiding or group PvP are nearly impossible. I used to be a real min/maxxer, theorycrafter, statistics wonk, and very serious player. But that was when I had time and thought that it was fun to play like that. These days, I sit down when i can, run some quests, and take it easy. I don't want it all easy per se, but I do enough exacting work at work, and I get paid for that. I'm more interested in relaxing now. I'm not arguing that others should play the game that way, or even that the game should be designed that way. On the other hand, solo content, except for an occasional pick up grouping for instances, is about all i care to do these days.

Well, it's not just the chances for RE that is the problem. The ideal situation is to be able to craft like leveled stuff as the character levels. A leveling character cannot be expected to drop tens of thousands of credits to uncover better stuff while they are saving up for equipment, skills and speeder licenses. The current system is an interesting one, but it's an endgame related system.

Well, it's not just the chances for RE that is the problem. The ideal situation is to be able to craft like leveled stuff as the character levels. A leveling character cannot be expected to drop tens of thousands of credits to uncover better stuff while they are saving up for equipment, skills and speeder licenses. The current system is an interesting one, but it's an endgame related system.

Sure, but there seems to be a design attitude in this game whereby they seem to expect players to just keep on trying. I did a particular space quest half a dozen times before I quit frustrated. I know some folks like to keep on trying until they get it, but if it becomes too much like work, it's not fun to me. I RE'd a stack of rather low level items today with no results. Disappointing. A couple more times of no results and I'll be done with the crafting system alltogether. The guy with the 200+ RE's has it right: If it's mostly random, that isn't really fun. If you want to make recipes difficult, you can do that by controlling the ingredients. Controlling access by what is, in effect, a low rate random drop isn't fun, be cause the player has very little control over the results.

I'm not anywhere near end game, being an alt-aholic. But the big issue I see in terms of content is, as you mentioned, a clear lack of leveling areas. The starting planets might be different, but the rest is all the same. It's not a good situation for someone like me, who tends to create many characters. EQ II, and even WoW had multiple areas per level band, and it took quite some time to experience all of it. Here, it's always the same string of planets.

Tom's hardware has a "best bang for the buck" setup for video cards, separated into price ranges. You might want to check that out.

Frankly, it's unfortunate that the game awards those who theorycraft what is supposed to be a roleplay mechanic.

That Khem Val fight can be difficult if you try to do it at level 8, especially for those of us who are casual players. The several times that I have done it, I've been at least level 10. There are some things you can try to make it a bit easier: -Make sure you have the best equipment possible. Get that 400 credit weapon if you havent found anything better. If you have enough Korriban commendations, spend them on the armor piece. -Buy the best medpacks you can...a couple or 3, and buy the willpower stimm...a couple or three of those, both in case you wipe. -Raise your level a bit. If you are only level 8, you may have missed quests, and you can always grind mobs around the Tulek Horde area. Those bat things that hang around the tablets are easy to kill for Inqs, and give good EXP. I'm not particularly interested in combat, so I tend to make sure I'm a couple levels above content as a matter of course. A couple levels really make a big difference. If you ask Zesh if there is anything more she can tell you, she mentions that Khem Val is force resistant. Plan accordingly (Have a good weapon?) Good luck.

I rolled a counselor to try to compare the storyline with my Sith Inq, and although I've only made it to 10, i must say that I find the Republic side somewhat less interesting. However, I will continue to play this character because the storyline does show some potential...that is, it was well done in it's own way. I don't PvP, and I can't usually group, since I often have to log off with little notice, so it's not going to bother me much if the population is low.

I think most folks are willing to grand wide leeway here. That said, the bad names tend to be obvious. I recently saw "Kingsithalot" on an RP server, for example.

And that is unfortunate. RPers don't want to see out of character names, and that is one reason why they play on an RP server. In an ideal world, populated by considerate people, thre wouldn't be any discussion of OOC names on the RP servers. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people, who, apparently for kicks, go on to the RP servers to try to deliberately annoy. It's to Bioware's discredit that they have no additional naming rules for RP servers. There are only a few RP servers, and a great many of the other types. One would hope that players rolling characters on the RP servers would, at least, make a minimal attempt not to be disruptive.

edit: Double post

Another thread full of juvenile drippyness. I end up one or two levels above. I don't PvP, and I generally don't do the heroics, although I'll often go back and do them later. This is what I do: -All available quests. -I actively seek out quests. -I uncover the entire map. (as much as possible without heroics, generally) -I don't fast travel, and I grind as I move from one place to another. -I kill everything in sight to the extent of my amusement (I am Sith, you know...). I don't sneak past mobs on my characters that can sneak. -I do space missions on occasion. -I take my time on each planet. I actively TRY to out-level the content because I'm more interested in the story and exploring then I am with the combat. Easy-mode is what this casual gamer enjoys. I've started another Inq character and i've just killed that one individual on the second planet. I'm level 15.5 now. I have two more major quest-lines to do, including one large area story line quest area. I don't intend to leave the planet until I am 18. It can get difficult, though, since a great deal of content on that planet is now green to me. Considering that I've been through this quest-line several times now, my desire to grind on lower level mobs is greatly diminished. I suggest that you keep it fun, and not let it become a chore.

This is my take on it. I dislike jumping games and figuring out too touchy terrain and invisible walls. I've left datagcrons in place because it isn't worth it to me. I just don't find it fun. Am I to be accused of being entitled or too lazy because I don't find this part of the game amusing? The OP should probably avoid sweeping statements, assumptions, and strawman arguments.

In the old world MuDs, one could honestly roleplay a punk, because there was always the chance of getting PKed for their actions. Not here. The first rule of RPing an evil character is not to do it in situations where the target player has no recourse to your actions, because the result is hardly roleplay.

Well, I'm nowhere near 50, but the storyline aspect bothers me as well. Just as storyline in a Bioware game like Dragon Age hardly promotes replayability, I suspect that when I finish the story-lines I'm interested in, I'll likely quit this game. The op is right in saying that the story is the only major difference between this MMO and the others. So what happens when the story runs out? Do we get more story in expansions?