As a person that has spent real money on the packs I can say I was left with a high sense of disappointment. I was excited about the packs within the packs but when I got a bag full of bronze emotes, title, dyes and very few weapons, decorations, and armor sets. In addition the armor sets I got are basically vendor trash (I am looking at you Thrull Statesman Armor set). I expected some trash. I was not expecting to be spending my time figuring out how i can dump 95% of the stuff for a SLIGHT profit rather than figuring out which one of my toons the items would look best on. I loved the Gold/Silver/Bronze pack. With them I could focus my roll to stuff i actually like (armor, weapons, mounts). I was never disappointed when opening those even when I got a vendor trash Bronze because I knew what I was in for when I bought the Bronze. When I get a hypercrate now I am expecting a few cool things, now it seems like I get hosed. I will not be spending money on them until they change. I would rather save up for the hope of the G/S/B stuff returning than waste it.

Bronze packs = chance at a Bronze, Silver, or Gold Item Silver packs = chance at Silver or Gold Item Gold packs = Gold item Unless the price difference is significant I fear you may have inadvertently reversed the rarity of the items. If I go for the gusto and buy gold packs I will at a later date need to shell out more effort and cash to fill in my collection holes of bronze and silver items that will now be at a premium. I may be really confused here and just not understand the format yet.

Corrisant commendation vendor now has a modable orange techblade

There is not an option for none... i took no preference in that I do not have a preference for the feature at all. I prefer the: be social, make friends and have accountability for your social actions approach. It is what builds communities. It is what levels out the classes across the 3 archetypes. It is what keeps people playing longer.

The email that delivered the item had an explanation of the intended use of the item.

I do agree that it has some issues but most seem to be in design not usability. There is a difference between design and usability. Just as a point of curiosity what standards are you referring to? Human Factors? W3C? I hope that did not come off as snippy, this is a topic that I have had many professional conversations about recently and I am just curious. Thank you so much, I suppose I could have Googled that... /facepalm. It sucks that my company forces me to use IE (I am embarrassed to say the version so I will not).... but at least my home browsing will be a lot more comfortable.

I think people's opinion of the site may be based off the browser they are using at the time. Could be wrong there. I do not get the comments about not following web standards. Seems to follow the standards I see on many non-gaming related sites and other social networking sites. It also appears to be “usable”. Especial in the fact that everyone reading this managed to find their way here… My big complaint is one that I have with most web sites not just this one and that is the lack of serif fonts. Some visual impairment makes reading san-sarif font difficult (dyslexia). At this point in time I have not found a browser that will allow for a font type conversion. For those that do not know serifs are the little tiny “ticks” added to letters in fonts like Times New Roman. For my version of dyslexia they stop letters and numbers from bouncing. I guess I will just have to deal with bouncing letters for now.

You know they are optional? I am generally a completist but I have on occasion decided to not continue with a bonus because of the back tracking that was required. It is OK to do that... the reward may be nice for you at the time you are doing it but will be long forgotten in a few days. Also, i am now in the habit of killing a few of the mobs that are hanging out outside of the cave/building to see if it triggers a bonus series and if it does I get the kill quest portion of it before I walk through the door.

It was communicated in the patch notes and several other places that when patch 1.2 was rolled out all classes would have their skill points refunded. The reason was because the skills and skill trees have been altered to such a degree that it was fair to give everyone a free respec.

I think the OP works for Blizzard /adjust his tinfoil hat

As you level you will get new abilities that will replace some of the ones that you are using at level 11. At 50 I have not used my light saber or Disturbance since level 12 or 13. You do have the basics of how a healing sage levels. Your companions do most of the damage while you keep them alive and throw in the occasional damage or utility power. When you get your AOE damage power leveling gets a lot faster as you can mow through weak mobs with ease and will spend less time healing and more time damaging, though against strong and higher power mobs I found the need to heal more frequently. Personally I used Quizin (sp) until I got my last companion then switched. Keeping him geared up allowed me to easily complete most quests and even solo a few heroic 2 man quest. I have all of my healing abilities that I uses frequently keybound 1-5 and my damage power bound 8-“=”. I use 6 and 7 as to swap out abilities depending on what I am doing. I put force lift and stun there if I am soloing and the “remove negative effect” power and AOE heal if I am grouping. I have an entirely different bar that I use for PvP as I find the power rotation is very different. I am a bit of a hybrid clicker/keybinder as I also have my other power bars visible where I store the powers that I occasionally use and click them when needed. For me it is about figuring out what is most effective in what situations and making sure those abilities are easy to use (keybound) and the powers that are less of a priority I click.

I use to play DAoC many years ago (one of the best gaming experience and communities I have been part of). One feature that they had that I think really helped build server wide communities and a sense of belonging was a concept called alliances. Alliances were a collection of guilds that effectively shared a common game goal and a common chat channel. The chat channel was controlled by roles and often guild leaders could give read access, talk access, administrator access to individuals. The community controlled the content of the channel, some were open and some were very controlled with strict rules. Rules like you cannot post trade request or you can only do LFG for raid level activity. These rules were not programmed but rather enforced by guild leaders and guild offices of the guilds within the alliance. This allowed guilds of all sizes to build relationships with other guilds and other people on the server. It also served a functional purpose in that it provided yet another avenue for people to fill out groups for different activities and peddle their crafting. Another benefit is that guilds of any size would not have to compromise their identities for the sake of completing different objectives. They could be part of the greater whole while being unique.

I love this analogy

They serve a legit purpose I wish they had more of a visual queue rather than an invisible number that you cannot see until the wipe or someone with a stop watch calls out. Mechanics of the encounter should create a sense of urgency not the rage clock. If a boss is meant to be a gear/spec check that is cool but have the laser slowly creeping up the table to James Bond's nether regions or a fuse that will blow the cave down.... or something else that people much more creative than me can figure out.