I don't need any flak for this, just my personal notes as someone who has played SWTOR off and on over the years, mostly off. It's intended to be helpful feedback to the devs who want to keep the game making money. I came back recently for a few months and had a lot of fun leveling a character to level 61. The story quests, as always, are very well done and who doesn't love Star Wars. Plusses: • Really enjoyed leveling my light-side sith sorcerer • Story was a lot of fun • XP boosts were great- just did the class quests after a few extra quests early on to catch up Minuses: • From level 61 looking on, it looks like the cost of my item mod gear gets crazy expensive as I near level 75. Yeah, I can drop that for one shot gear but I lose most of my crafting value and my augments so that path does really appeal • I could do some other characters to level 50 because I haven't done all class stories yet but the quagmire for crafting good 60+ gear puts a damper. At these levels, there isn't always mats available in GTN or they are crazy expensive. So, the short of it is, after enjoying the game for 2.5 months, and for the accountants, purchasing plenty of GTN credits, I'm going to other MMOs for now. If the game is around in 1-2 years, no doubt I will be back for another 2-3 months but for now, the wall as I near 75 doesn’t seem fun. I am not into SWTOR for the end game grind… I just like leveling the toons and enjoying the solo play. Anyway, I'm just one voice you can ignore or not. Bottom line, if the solo play was friendly to level 75 I'd keep going for another few months and another few $100. But it doesn't appeal as-is so off to other games. Cheers

Top to bottom: Last Jedi Rogue One New Hope Revenge of the Sith Force Awakens Empire Strikes Back Attack of the Clones Return of the Jedi Phantom Menance I've seen them all at the time they came out, so have enjoyed them all for what they were in the moment. And the why: First two because they are gritty and plain fun. I love the new characters. Rogue one is awesome: dedication to a long shot, how can you beat that? Last Jedi redeems emo Kylo and Mary Sue Rey. New Hope is a classic. Especially for the time it was an eye opener and even now hard to beat. Still, it shows its age. Not quite up to the best of the new. Also has the dedication to the long shot element. Revenge of the Sith: an adequate wrap up to a very disappointing prequel. Flawed, and best enjoyed if you skip the painful "Padme suddenly becomes a useless wimp" parts. it still has some impact as a wrap-up for Lucas' vision, such as it is. Force Awakens: fun, but oddly too beholden to New Hope. Rey is a queen of the Mary Sues (more than redeemed in Last Jedi). Kylo is annoying emo sith. Fun to watch but not too strong. Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, it's got character development. And it hasn't aged all that well and it's kind of slow. Middle of the pack, sorry elitest movie critics. Attack of the clones. Not great or even good. Entertaining enough if you skip the awful romance scenes. Mind boggling why Lucas thought it was necessary to hammer that romance. Give the characters the grace to have a half normal relationship. Return of the Jedi. If a great galaxy spanning empire can't defend itself against an early, early paleolithic culture then why bother? Yes guerrillas who understand their terrain are kick ***. No, teddy bears with bows made out of any old twig bent in the forest can't stop anything. Not even a bunny rabbit. Very stupid episode. Phantom Menance: pointless movie. Does nothing for the plot. And, yes, even on a water world, pressure at the core is mind boggling. Pod race fun to watch if barely relevent. Midichlorians and all else painful.

I'd like to see account-wide guild membership by imperial/republic side. For me, the current method makes it too difficult to bother even joining guilds. At present, I am more interested in leveling various toons and I don't really have a main, although as I tire of leveling, I might turn to a main. It isn't worth the trouble of getting my various toons into one guild and most guilds limit the number of alts because it is hard to manage a bunch of them. If we could account wide join guilds by Imperial/republic side, it would be a lot simpler. With the addition of a "main" button, guilds who care about mains could also easily track and filter on mains. For checking character activity guilds could also do it by player, not by toon, and when needing to kick inactive players, they can do it once for all the player's toons. In the end, maybe guilds really don't want alt-hopping players but I get enough invites on my lower level toons that that doesn't really seem to be the case. But toon switching for invites is tedious, so I don't join, although I like helping out others leveling characters with groups and gear, and just for a friendlier than general chat environment.

Thanks, all. I think I jumped the gun on my sith warrior- must have remembered them starting earlier. On my trooper, I'll play a few more planets and see if they start up again. When I level my sith sorcerer, I had a lot of commendations in from before I left the game so that might have smoothed out any gaps.

No- just not seeing the commendations as an option at all, not the old 1x or the new 12x.

Are they still granting extra commendations with the 12x XP story bonus? I'm a subscriber and I am getting the 12x XP bonus but on my trooper, I stopped getting the extra commendations. I figured I just over spent one cycle and forked out a lot of upgrades but after 6 or 7 levels of no extra commendations, I'm in need of an upgrade and loathe to spend credits for it. I figured I either did something odd or outran the bonus so decided to start a sith warrior but, while I do get the story xp bonus, i don't seem to be getting commendation bonuses either. It did work just fine when I finished leveling a sith sorcerer and for more than 30 levels of trooper. I have to confess, the story quest is the main thing I came back for. This is disappointing.

I came back to SWTOR because some friends are playing here but that's just a Saturday night thing. I'm staying, having moved from a game with, frankly, much better artwork and gameplay, because of the 12x XP on story missions. Tried that actually in October on the first version, which was a good idea but unusable. The story and voice acting is where SWTOR shines for me so this is a big deal. The current version with the travel unlocks and extra commendations is well executed and a pleasure. I plan to finish all the story arcs over the summer. Not sure how long I'll stay after that is done but I might stay on indefinitely. While the basic play is some what stale for MMOs these days, the universe is fun and the zones seem lively, which is nice.

I just returned to SWTOR because some friends are playing here. I'm liking it better than I expected. 1) What is your overall impression of TOR as of right now? Seems pretty solid. Lots of folks on the servers, chat isn't too bad for the most part. The game still feels to me like a decent implementation of mid2000s MMO technology (not really a good thing- combat is rather static, for instance) but it's definitely play-able. 2) What is your favorite aspect of gameplay in TOR as of right now? I tried SWTOR briefly last Nov when they first did the 12x story xp bonus, realized it would be a) tedious to get the travel points and b) too expensive to keep my toon geared as I leveled. The new version of 12x XP is far better. At the moment, I'm enjoying story quests when not running with friends. 3) What is your least favorite aspect of gameplay in TOR as of right now? Far too linear on quest progression. Without the 12x XP on stories, it is just mind numbing to level alts (which I like to do). 4) How would you like to see your least favorite aspect of gameplay improved? Would be nice to have an auto-level option like many other MMOs so you could downlevel for friends. Even better would be non-linear leveling but that's difficult given the story structure. 5) What features would you like to see added to TOR in the future? Account wide bank and wallet 6) If Jar Jar Binks dies in the next SW movie, how do you hope it will happen? It's too easy to kill him off, everyone hates him. It would be much more interesting to somehow credibly make him a wise elder, maybe an effective chancellor, for instance. Do something unexpected with him: grow him into something useful

I've been playing lower level PVP- unlike lvl 50 PVP, that's actually a lot of fun. I'll have to try it on a healer at some point, too.

Yeah, I agree But there's something about SWTOR PVP that is frustrating. I like it in other MMOs.

You aren't kidding... starting in the 50s is brutal. I've tried a few times in my "gimme" starter gear. I start out- hey only 4k health lower than the other guys, not bad. Try to dps... i do insignificant damage and get owned. It's not even worth trying to attack. I might as well be a target droid. In every other MMO I've played, I've enjoyed pvp, even starting out low-geared, but I can't seem to get into it in SWTOR, at low level or level cap. And grinding through a lot of WZs until I finally have gear... I dunno. This is a game after all, it's supposed to be a form of entertainment, not a dreadful grind. I do like the game for the story quests and have a number more to do. I'll have to try some more pvp while leveling and see if that does it for me but if pvp doesn't click for me and I get tired of leveling toons, I guess it is back to rift. I like that pvp.

There's a lot of truth to that. You can never have that first time experience again. And yet... SWTOR could have been a lot more. Some of what is missing can be added over time but the stale endgame mechanics and fundamental quest structure (kill this/fetch that) would be very hard to fix; that needs to be designed in from the beginning. I think they made a big mistake not advancing the underlying game play. Someone will address these issues eventually, until then, MMO companies can expect a big early influx followed but a steady loss of players.

For all the flak you are taking, I feel the same way. I like the game. I'd like to like it more. But I can't. I just dropped my subscription back to monthly while I consider going back to playing Rift while waiting to see what GW2 offers. What bothers me? A few things... Legacy was a big letdown. Nice concept but what was actually executed was a little toe in the water. Plus, was really put out that the best way to get legacy levels is to focus on running your high level toons. Seems like it should be as viable for folks who like alts (like me) to have legacy XP tied to time played rather then fraction of XP (meaning, why can't I get as much legacy XP for five hours on my level 20 as I do for 5 hours on my level 42?) WOW taught me that I hate endgame raids and daily quest grind. Was really hoping SWTOR would do something different for the end game but sadly, it was not to be. Was also really hoping SWTOR would do something more than the very stale "kill this/fetch that" quest. Spoken dialogue only makes up for that so much. Years of MMOs have also taught me that aesthetics matter to me. The character gear is mostly ugly and boring, especially on the republic side. On the plus side, I like the crafting system, the spoken dialogue does make for better personality and back story, the companions are a nice addition. Certainly getting to play the rich world of Star Wars is a blast. But in the end, I'd have to chalk up the game as "does not meet expectations". Was hoping to enjoy it for at least 12-18 months but I think this one is going to be a 4-6 month one. If I do drop it, I'll keep an eye on it in case they make material improvements but just not what I was hoping for.

I love SWTOR and intend to spend a great deal of time on it but all good things come to an end. Much of what I love about SWTOR has to do with the story as created by the companions, class quests, and well executed side quests. For the first time ever in an MMO, I feel my characters have a real personality. Beyond that, while well executed and with some nice evolutionary improvements to MMO play, it is still a fairly conventional game in terms of actual play, quests (kill this, get that), and endgame. Therefore, what I see killing SWTOR is one of two things or a combination of the two: 1) If the developers cannot keep adding new content that furthers the story aspect. 2) If a new game comes along that has at least some of the story aspect but takes MMOs to the next step. For both points one and two, so far, I see end game play as the achilles' heal of SWTOR. I have not yet hit 50 (because I like leveling toons and am leveling multiple at once) but from discussions with those who have and some research, it seems like the standard endgame grind of dailies and raids. This is no better or worse than many other MMOs but since SWTOR has done such a nice job of providing an interesting leveling experience the transition from leveling to endgame will be even more jarring for players. A game that can provide an alternative to the standard solution will likely be very appealing. So, to summarize, I see SWTOR fading if the developers can't keep the story fresh. I also see it falling off if ultimately if it becomes all about end game (because that is not its strength). The wild card will be what do players have to turn to. I don't know about Guild Wars2 end game but they seem to be trying to rethink much of the MMO experience and if they also fixed endgame, I could see that taking the wind out of SWTOR sails within the year. If not GW2, some other more revolutionary game perhaps will do it to SWTOR farther down the road. Don't get me wrong; I love SWTOR so far. If they execute legacy features well, I could stay happy in this game for 10-18 months, maybe longer with some good expansions. But for me, and I suspect for many who have played MMOs for years now, I am susceptible to a new game that takes MMOs to the next step. Put another way: I love the game so far, I love the leveling, I dread the point where I am tired of leveling toons and have only the endgame grind to entertain me because I know that won't do it for me any more. Putting up with dailies and raids to get gear that becomes essentially useless with the next expansion is not why I spend money on a subscription fee.