This is Russell from TOROCAST! Albie asked me to follow up here to this! HEY!

Basically, yes. The way it works (I'll use SWTOR terminology here, rather than City of Heroes - to make it clear), when you join a team it artificially lowers your level to the team leader and "de-bolsters" you so that you are scaled with players that level. You do not earn XP if you are higher level (though CoX eventually allowed this to a limited extent) but you DO get the credits for the defeat (scaled so that it's not unlike running dailies/FPs of your level) and you'd still incur the HIGHER repair costs if you were defeated. So, if you were a level 50 wanting to play with level 30 friends the following rules would be in effect: 1. You are de-bolstered to level 30. 2. You earn money as if you were running missions of your level. 3. You incur repair costs as if you were defeated by someone of your level. Note that this could also work if you were 40 and your friends were 20. With this, I can tell a friend of mine "Hey, come play Star Wars, I can play WITH you"; and not worry if someone couldn't play for a week or two. Right now, I know, if a friend of mine plays, I either have to roll a character of their level OR just say "Great, get to level 50 and I'll be able to play with you."

I know this has been brought up before, but.... The currently leveling system penalizes people who want to play non-50s together. Between the fact there is no way to match people of different levels and the incredibly small groups for leveling, it feels like Bioware is creating disincentives to playing with friends who are levelling. There needs to be some way to permit people of different levels to play together. Bolstering code in PvP exists, so this technology is IN PLACE. The current choices for non-50s to play together is... 1. Telling players they can only play their characters when their friends are on. 2. You HAVE to PvP. 3. Spend Cartel Coins or Credits to speed up leveling. These are ways that only enforce PAIN on players and say "You have to have fun OUR way, not YOUR way. If you want to play with your friends, wait til your 50." Other games, such as City of Heroes, had structures in place that allowed high level characters to play with low level characters and vice-versa. It is doable, it works, and with the fact that Bioware has chosen such a small group size for non-Operation groups, they MUST provide some other ways to help players have fun together. It is this type of problem that has prompted people from noting that it's not an MMO but a single player game that a lot of people can play online. Yes, fine, you don't want people of lower levels seeing higher level content. WHY CAN'T HIGHER LEVELS PARTICIPATE IN LOWER LEVEL CONTENT???? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FIX THIS!

The BIGGEST thing for me...."Exemplaring" I have many alts. My friends have many alts. We still have to solo because our alts are not the same level. Due to story considerations, I understand that artificially increasing level isn't an option. I'd immediately choose an option to artifically lower my level to play with a friend who was leveling an alt: not for personal XP, but for the fun of playing with friends. I want to play with my friends while leveling. When teaming up with lower level people, create an offer dialog asking if you'd like to temporarily lower your level to whoever is the group leader.

I'm up to 3 hours on Coruscant. I'm getting very angry.

TOROCast Episode 163 - "Life Day Special?" is live! This time around, Tom sits out, so we offer his comfy floating throne to Evarwyn, formerly of SWTOR Reforged! Since our last release, 1.6 has dropped, and so has the Life Day Event, or has it? In the Meat and Pota-TORs, Jeff and Road discuss Drew Karpyshyn’s latest novel (no spoilers!), Annihilation, and then we turn the show over to Evarwyn to discuss himself, SWTOR Reforged, and the Quest Gaming Network. But let’s not forget, Seasons Greetings from TOROCast! Head over to TOROCast.com to give a listen, subscribe on iTunes, or just throw the URL feed into your favorite non-iTunes podcatcher! HATE AND SUBSCRIBE!

Guardian, Tank spec Can be summed up with the following line uttered in Vent during last night's raid, "Well, I think a Shadow tank could solo this if they had to". My threat is very lacking. It was a struggle to get adds to pay any attention to me. I need better threat generation. I felt like the mobs said, "Oh, that's a tank. They don't do high damage, so we can ignore him." I cannot maintain aggro when I get a good DPS on my team.

Byss Ambria Raltir Onderon

brrrraaaaaiiinnnzzzz......

Brains......

I need an RSS feed for this so I can add it to my podcatcher!

I'm there! I run the Republic side Guild the Foundation of Jhantor. I was wondering if there are any server-wide chat channels yet? Something like "Looking for Flashpoints" or "Raiding"?

Cute video! Is there a "getting started" guide? I'd love to try my hand at creating a Machinima, but I have zero idea where to begin w/r to scripting TOR.

As a Jedi Guardian, the boxes don't seem to help. He still trows me around like a ragdoll. The fact that when he knocks you away allows him to deprive you of all but about 150 of your hitpoints (level 25 Guardian) doesn't help.

Up to level 6. May the Force be with You!