No doubt about that. I'm a sniper main and she's the toughest SoB bar none. My Sorcerer not to even mention my utterly useless Juggernaut both pale by comparison. Snipers have insane ranged DPS, and insane utility. But if you're content on sitting your butt down and pressing 1-2-3, don't expect wonders. My typical primary role in group PvP is to pick out the damn healers from the back seeing as I hate em anyway. A single rotation of Aimed Shot + Explosive Probe + Followthrough will drop them to half health or less with my crappy gear. After that another rotation of Series of Shots + instaSnipe + Followthrough + Takedown will pretty much finish them off. Actually that same recipe works against almost anything. Any attempts to heal will be interrupted by Distraction, the melee stun, or Cover Pulse. Any attempts to run away will be cut short with Leg Shot. And I rarely ever need to use Flashbang anyway so I just reserve that for when I need some AoE control. With Entrench I don't even need to worry about being CC'd so they can't catch a breath and heal inbetween the combos either. I'm practically always first or second on damage in a given battleground, and I know I'm hardly anywhere close to the best players out there. So the class is fine. *Edit: And for the cover seeing as that's always a subject, only a crappy Sniper ever sticks in cover for anything else but the opener or in a safe ranged combat scenario anyway. Aside from Ambush and Explosive Probe, none of the abilities really need cover (Series of Shots is a novelty rotation filler I use to conserve energy, hardly useful if you're under fire), and as Snipe becomes instant anyway, all it needs is a tap to cover and back up again. Even the cover's defense bonus sticks with the basic low level talents so you can easily afford to run around and pop down only for those few fractions of a second. Personally I'm glad the mechanic is there though. It's a good trap for the lazy players and you can usually predict a great deal of an opposing sniper's skill judging by whether they know to stay mobile, or just sit behind a cover all the time. All games need hurdles like that to weed out the unskilled imo, if it was all as simple as pressing 1-2-3 then where would the challenge be?

It removes dots? I didn't know that, and I seriously doubt it too. Personally I find it immensely useful, especially when combined with shield probe. You just have to use it before you're about to die anyway. Typically whether it's PvE or PvP, I can see the enemy's alpha strike coming a mile away, so I activate Evasion before it does. They then pump their biggest openers and miss, and whatever's left gets mitigated by shield probe anyway. And if it's a ranged mob, the Smoke Canister does wonders too.

I've played a Sorcerer, and Juggernaut to lvl 35ish, and my current lvl 36 sniper is by far the best of them for both PvE and PvP. Lethal spec. If anything I've been afraid they'd nerf her. A sniper does *not* have low mobility. It's just that since the option is there, it encourages lazy players (not as offensive, it's just that most people on average prefer to take it easy) to stick to the station and sit there. Really cover's just supposed to be used for the few abilities that need it to trigger. Typically I only tap cover for the instant snipe, ambush, explosive probe and now with lvl 36 for series of shots. Something of note is also the fact that I've used Vector exclusively since I got him, so I have no tank for PvE either, meaning most of the mobs focus on me. And yet it's hardly a problem. Snipers have shielding probe, evasion, the buff from cover, and loads of utility abilities from smoke canister to flashbang to stun to knockback to root etc, most with a low cooldown. Even the grenade knocks normal mobs down. Which means that even with your normal attack rotation killing half of most mobs in an encounter practically instantly, there's plenty of survivability to go around for those that are still alive. My sorcerer was by far inferior to my sniper, and most people think of them as overpowered. The juggernaut has additional stun etc PvE-only components to basically all of his abilities, and still he's inferior to a sniper. And as said, the sniper's abilities - like practically all of them - are just as efficient in both PVE and PvP. Just that as opposed to the more or less "press 1-2-3" approach you could take with a jug or a sorc, as a sniper I regularly need to use over a dozen different abilities seamlessly in the same encounter. I've played a lot of games - including MMO's -, so I'd like to imagine I've some experience and sense of reality when it comes to the overall picture of things. And I can with good conscience claim that a sniper is definitely more challenging and twitchy to play than most other classes, but mastery with it leaves little room for doubt: it is a *very* good class, one of the best.

Title says it all. I've played: Sith Inquisitor - male Sith Warrior - male Jedi Consular - female Imperial Agent - female Out of those I have to say that Jo Wyatt's performance as the female Imperial Agent is nothing less than superb. To think that I didn't even recognize her from Dragon Age 2 as Hawke, and I loved her there too. Mark Bazeley as the male Sith Warrior was great as well. On the other hand, Athena Karkanis as the Jedi Consular female was kind of a letdown. She wasn't bad, she just didn't seem to have any emotional nuances to her dialogue at all. Then again, I only played her to about lvl 10, so maybe it gets better over time. Sith Warrior and Imperial Agent however were extremely convincing from the very beginning. Who's your favorite VO? I used http://swtor.wikia.com as source for the VO's.

In short, as I have to hurry back to play, SWTOR is amazing. As a BioWare fan, and as a long-time MMO fan, this is for all intents and purposes a dream come true for me. Of course, the infamous endgame is something I've yet to see. But I've never really cared about that much anyway so I doubt it'll be a problem.

TBH it all sounds nice and dandy, but what are the realistic consequences of what the OP is suggesting? That on a personal level, obtaining good gear would become WAY more difficult. The prices would soar to levels thousandfold compared to now, or more. Getting even remotely proper gear would once more become a matter of purchasing gold, dedicating yourself to 24/7 grinding for cash and mats, or just the plain old tedium of being forced to join guilds and know the proper people just to remain the least bit competitive. The big picture be damned. If I have to choose between myself being rich and equipped with everyone else, or myself being poor with the most hardcorest being rich and competitive, I'll choose the first option every single time. I hate the MMO design that makes it all about grind, guilds, and grind. Might bring longevity as a whole, but to me all it does is the usual 2-3 months of sub and then I quit. The games I've played the longest are games like GW, DCUO and SWG (back in the day) where I can remain reasonably close to the peak in gear and cash with nothing but normal gaming with friends and guild without the need to dedicate my entire life to the game. I fully support SWTOR's style of giving plentiful rewards for a variety of different tasks, to support everyone's gaming style. And keeping the top-tier gear on a remotely reasonable level so that the top 1% don't end up dominating everyone else just because they don't have jobs, school or families.

Bumpity for community feedback.

Really, she didn't. *Some* people enjoy exploration, most, as evidenced by the way modern MMO's and RPG's work, would rather have it as an option as opposed to being forced on them. The way it is now, is to allow players to play as per their own preferred style depending on which options they've enabled. What you are asking for is forcing your own likes on others with some made-up fantasy about how it's better and more beneficial for all involved, when really it's not. Personally I love exploring, but often enough I have a few hours at a time to play, and I've some specific goal in mind such as a level, an item or a skill to reach within that time. The last thing I'd want then is to wander around aimlessly getting minimal experience from trash mobs, and just be forced to search for third party sites and wikis to find what I'm even looking for in the first place. That design is ancient, and for a very good reason. Regardless, the game works the way it does. What you're asking for just isn't going to happen anyway, as BW would easily lose a whole lot of its customers. People want gaming to be comfortable, not tedious and troublesome.

Hi and obviously, thanks BW for yet another in a long list of insanely good games! I do have an issue however. I do a lot of PvP, and the biggest problem bar none I have there, is the way the popups spam your screen when a crew member has completed a task. I'm sure many people agree that during PvP, we'd much rather either have them go directly to pending, or at least STAY there once you press esc to get that popup the heck outta the way. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've died or almost had an impending nerd rage attack on the account of those popups spamming my screen 2-3 at a time and then keep coming back when I mash esc to get them out of my face. Several times in the same match no less as typically in PvP, most seconds are life & death ones. In PvE it's less of an issue. But as it is right now, I hardly bother to send my crew members on missions anymore when I have reason to suspect I'll be in PvP when they come back. Thanks for reading.

You know this for a fact? If so, then thanks.

So I suppose nobody has a clue about how this works then?

I suppose it should be, personally all I get from it is utter and complete disappointment in mankind as a whole. I seriously hope all the early access whiners really do quit and never get in any game I'm in again. Having played DCUO recently I got reminded of exactly how likely it is that these impatient and unknowledgeable people are the very same individuals who have no concept of how to play their class, who seem to be blind and deaf to the team, and who ninja loot all over all the time. I would rather not have them in the game. My only beef with the early access is not knowing when I get my cd-code. My account is still stuck on no product code and it won't accept my pre-order code at all. So I have no clue whether I should wait for the email (which with the beta weekend for example never came, even when I was notified that it would, meaning I don't have a whole lot of trust in their emailings), or to just contact CS directly. We really should be notified of all this. What's wrong with offering specific, easy to understand information where there's no room for misinterpretation?

I have the same issue. On my account info page it says I haven't registered my key yet, only the history shows that I did indeed register my pre-order key, the only one I got over email as I preordered digitally. This key however can't be used again as it's "already been used". Now, I assume we will get another email with the real digital purchase key when our early access period starts, but considering I got no stress beta invite either even though I got the confirmation of that (and I had registered my key way prior to 11/11), I don't really have 100% faith in that I'll get the mail I should get. In the pre-order guide page, there is no mention of WHERE the product code you actually need is going to be. Is it the same as the pre-order code? Is it in the email that contains the early access invitation? If the answer's no to both questions, then where and how do I get my code?