OK, today I only need 18 commendations to get a new piece of gear. I played 2 warzones, and each time we got rolled badly. In both cases I received zero of everything. End result: Players on my teams didn't help themselves one whit, while the other teams scarfed up on commendations for better gear. More future game imbalance. So was so wrong with the 1.1 warzones. Granted, there was nothing gained from your team winning, but at least you got something for trying. As it was, between waiting in the queue and suffering through these two defeats, I totally wasted about 40 minutes of my day. Devs, give some thought to the unintended consequences before you roll out something like this change.

Although there is no space combat required for smuggler, there is for consular. Not sure why there isn't one for every class. Meh, maybe it will just remain mostly a mini-game.

Age 71, The Harbinger, name: Conny

Every MMO has hackers and cheaters in PvP areas. I just left Aion because of the rampant cheating ... invulnerability cheats, one-shot cheats, speed cheats, and so on. And this has been true in every PvP area of every game I have played, especially where players are ranked by individual kills and such. Before a GM does something about a cheating player there has to be some kind of proof: name of cheater, time, date, area, and preferably a screen shot. Let's face it, these are hard to come by in a PvP area where everyone is running around like crazy Now, I realize that they are not entirely absent in SWTOR, but so far it's been minimal. However, I fear for the worst if players are ranked by individual stats.

My nine year-old grandson is playing an MMO called Wizard 101. The other day I asked him how he chose the class of Necromancer and he told me that the game will recommend a class based on your answer to a list of questions. You don't have to take the recommendation, but it is offered. I thought that was so cool. How many of us have entered a new game with absolutely no idea what class might be best for us and ended up having to re-role to something we might like better. I would love to see something like this for new SWTOR players.

I have some concerns about the forthcoming Player Rankings. If by "player ranking" they mean posting the names of people with, say, the most kills or the most damage, this would dramatically increase the number of people using cheats so that they could be among the top. I've seen this happen in other games. In addition, it would tend to invite people to ignore objectives and instead get involved in useless side fights. If, on the other hand, these rankings list something like who has played the most Warzones or who has been on the most winning teams, I would support something like that. But to emphasize individual stats (outside of team play) is an invitation to disaster.

Up until now I havn't really noticed cheats, but now I think I may have seen some, all in Huttball. Maybe I'm wrong but: (1) Guy from opposing team has the ball and is running to the goal line. 4-5 guys are beating on him and he hardly loses any HP. Happened over and over. They pass the ball to him and he just runs to the goal almost invulnerale. Final score 6-0. (2) Speed hack. I know some classes have a super-sprint ability, but for my shadow it only lasts 2 seconds. Today I saw a guy with the ball run in hyper-drive from one side of the room to the other and up some ramps. Both these hacks were prevelant in Aion, which is why I quit the game in frustration. I sure hope cheats are not beginning to take foothold here.

The trajectory of every MMO I've played is to make things easier and easier as the game matures. Usually that really galls me when I've done things the "hard" way. However, in this case I can understand the reasoning. First, the game is fairly new and devs never really know how things will work out until the game has been played for a while. As for the BM gear, I have mixed emotions. One one hand, just starting warzones at level 50 is frustrating. I have arranged things while leveling so that I can get 6 centurion gear bags once I hit 50. This will produce 2 pieces of body armor, plus some commendations left over. But people who have full sets of BM gear have a distinct advantage. Not aking anything away from their effort, but it does make warzones frustrating and not fun. I did enjoy warzones from level 10-49. Even at level 10 I could get 3-4 medals because no-one had uber gear and the only advantage a high-level person had was their skill points, But once you hit 50 it's all about gear. to me, PvP should be about skill and not gear. Certainly gear has a place, but it should not be the dominating factor.

In every MMO I have played the forums are 90% filled with players griping and complaining about this and that. Seems to me that the WoW heads are upset that the game isn’t the same as WoW. But WoW has had 10 years to mature and this game only months. Fortunately, the developers have so far seemed to ignore what the malcontents have to say. I once played a MMO where the devs actually polled subscribers about what should be changed, and implemented a good deal of the changes … the result was DISASTEROUS. I took me not long to unsubscribe when those changes were applied. So much for listening to the forums (which, as I have said, is comprised 90% with malcontents with their own personal agendas). With this in mind I would like to take the opposite tact and praise what is good about the game: BUGS: For a game just out of the box there is an amazing lack of bugs and the few that are discovered are quickly fixed with a weekly update. CONTENT: Again, for a game so new there is an impressive amount of content. And I am sure this will grow as the game matures with add-ons and expansions. QUESTS: I recently unsubscribed to a game where all the quests were of two types: kill quests (kill X amount of these and Y amount of those) or run-around quests where you pointlessly run all around finding NPCs to talk to. Any resemblance of a storyline was purely coincidental. In this game the quests are actually quite varied and interesting, and for those people who do enjoy killing stuff most of the quests have kill bonuses. LEVELING: I really like that there are many ways of leveling. You can level through grouping, doing solo quests, or simply by doing the storyline quests + a lot of warzones. Seems there is a way for everyone’s tastes and play style. GEAR: In every game gear has varying degrees of importance. In some if you’re not uber-geared it’s almost impossible to get a group; and to get geared as such requires hours and hours of boring and pointless grinding. In this game gear has a certain amount of importance but it’s not critical. Most of your solo quests can be accomplished with very average and inexpensive gear. What seems to me to be more important is how you use your skill points. And from levels 10-49, gear in warzones is almost immaterial. What is material is, as I’ve said, how you use your skill points and how good a PvPer you are. CUTSCENES AND DIALOG: An excellent alternative to the simple text boxes used by other games (which most people just click through and ignore). Although it does slow down my leveling, I really enjoy listening to what is being said (but I must admit that when I am leveling a new character I do tend to spacebar through cutscenes I have seen many times before). STORYLINES: OMG, a game that actually has interesting storylines. The whole thing is one big storyline. I particularly like the class storylines. I am currently leveling a Jedi Counselor and, yes, I have read several complaints about that storyline. But this is just another example of malcontents wanting everything to be their way. The storyline is fine as it is. I’ve also leveled Gunslinger to 50 and found that one to also be very interesting. COMPANION STORYLINES: In other games your “pet” is little more than just a bogus way of seducing you into thinking that you have something special when, in fact, it’s nothing more than just another ability that could easily be incorporated as an ability hotkey. But in this game our companions actually have a personality, some attractive and some obnoxious depending upon the particular companion. And they all have a story line. As a Jedi Shadow I find the Qyzen Fess storyline to be particularly touching. As a Gunslinger I found Risha to be so obnoxious that I never used her; and Guss Tuno (the wannabe Jedi) is hilarious (“I don’t have anything to say unless you want to hear the joke again about the twin lightsabers in my underwear”). WARZONES: Again, there have been numerous complaints, but the warzones are excellent just the way they are. Each one is completely different and not very time-consuming. I’m impressed how the Huttball announcer calls what is happening and some of his stuff is quite funny. I suspect that the complainers just don’t understand how to play the warzones, but I notice that more and more people do seem to know what they’re doing. Sure, I wouldn’t mind a couple more different ones, and we are getting a new one with 1.2. But what I have noticed most is the apparent absence of cheating. In some games I’ve played so many people use PvP cheats that the game becomes unplayable. (However, I suspect that it’s not entirely absent in this game). Are there minor changes and adjustments I would like to see? Of course there are, but I won’t go into that now. Suffice it to say that I want to give the devs a big kudo for coming up with something so varied and fun.

I feel your pain. Our little popguns don't do all that much damage 1v1. Although I guarantee I am not the most expert gunslinger in the world, I can tell you what works best for me. IMO, the sharpshooter tree is great for PvE, but PvP is all about mobility. Once you take cover everyone knows who you are and will attack you unmercifully (at least that's what I do when I'm playing my Shadow). I've tried all sorts of builds based on the various forum guides and after all that I am convinced there is no "best" build. What works best for you depends on your play style. What works best for me is being as mobile as possible. I have no points in SS ... all are distributed between DF and Sab, more or less equally. Sorry, I don't have a skill tree to show you, but I make sure I have every grenage available: frag, flash, shrap, and shock. So I run around tossing every grenade I can, try to slow them down and DoT them as much as possilbe, and hope my popguns do enough damage to finish the fight. I don't know if that helps or not, but maybe an expert can offer a better opinion.

Where the heck did you find a moddable techblade? I've searched the world for one.

Pretty darn good. How are you spec'd. Also, do you use the number keys or the mouse to select abilities?

I'm a lvl 21 Shadow and have not yet assigned any skill points. I am most interested in having skills for PvP (warzones, etc) since most PvE combat is pretty easy. I realize that everyone has their own play style, which effects the skill tree they prefer. But I was wondering what the consensus might be as to the best allotment of points towards PvP. BTW, I don't see myuself tanking at lower levels (if at all -- why would a group want a tank in light armor if they could get one with heavy?). In advance, thanks.

Actually, both Centurion and Champion gear have Expertise; it's just that the Champion's has a little bit moire (43 vs. 39 per piece as I recall).

Great write-up. Thanks a ton.

It seems to me that the Sharpshooter tree is best for PvE. While you need to use Cover a lot, the mobs just mostly stand in one place and let you shoot them. In PvP, however, having to take cover all the time can get you killed. The enemy is in constant movement. No-one stands still. You are immobile and while you are trying to get off a high-damage shot you get ganked by 2-3 melee characters. Which leads me to believe that the Dirty Fighting tree might be best for PvP ... you can do decent damage (albeit a lot if it is DoT) without always having to take cover all the time. Any thoughts on the pluses and minuses of the Sharpshooter vs. Dirty Fighting for Warzones?

I don't understand why you want to wait until 50 to PvP, since you can start warzones at 10. Start at 10, do a lot of them, and by the time you are 50 you will have plenty of warzone commendations. Oh, and also, you get better xp in less time by doing warzones than all that running around and dong quests. Plus, if you do the daily PvP mission you get a whole lot of extra exp if you side wins. Sure, if you start at 50 it's a pain. But more to the point, where is it written that the best gear should be easy to get? If you want the best, be prepared to put in some time getting it. Personally, I think the current PvP system is excellent.