What we are seeing here is a classic example of the economic distortions that occur in the vast majority of MMO's. EVE-Online is about the only exception I know of. When high-level players can earn vastly more credits than lower-level players, and there are a good number of high-level players in the game, then items sold by players tend to be priced according to what a high-level players can afford. This situation is exacerbated in a game where alts are common, because the low-level alts are essentially playing with the "high-level wallet" of their main character. Raw materials for crafting are usually the worst example of this economic distortion. A high-level main rolls a new alt and wants to level-up the crew skills on that alt. Let's say it takes 1 hour to gather a pile of 99 Desh and 99 Silica. If an L50 character can earn 40K per hour (from selling trash loot to a vendor and/or doing dailies), then that player would be stupid not to pay 10K for a 99-stack of Desh or Silica. This is the concept of "opportunity cost". Which is a better way to spend your 1-hour of ingame time ? Gathering "free" materials, or buying them from someone else on the GTN for half the credits you could have earned in that 1 hour through earning credits some other way ? Gathering resources is a slow manual process in SWTOR. I have seen very few players that are obviously on a purely gathering expedition. In fact, I can't recall seeing any on the 5 worlds I've visited so far. Most people seem to scavenge when questing brings them near an appropriate node. So they are gathering low volumes, which are most likely for personal use. Again, why spend 1 hour doing a harvesting circuit when questing will probably gain you 2 character levels in that time ?

Yes, I meant Tatooine, lol Thanks for the clear explanation, now I know where I am in the scheme of things

Hmmm... can you smell that smell ? Smells like ROLLBACK to me...

There's no ETA because someone discovered that the Live servers are now so borked that the only option is to rollback to pre 1.2... BW are just trying to decide how they are going to tell us this happy news

After which planet's storyline quests does the Legacy system unlock ? I'm assuming that the unlock is tied to your class story progression, not your character level. I have a trooper at L31, but no Legacy access yet. I have yet to start on Dantooine storyline quests. It's very easy to over-level in SWTOR, specially if you do too many space dailies

From the smoothest launch in MMO history to the most disastrous first major patch roullout ? Oh, how the mighty have fallen... Something is evidently not going well in the BW operations team. First the accidental early release of invalid patch files, then a hasty fix to the actual 1.2 patch which in turn (as hasty patches often do), totals the Live servers. Someone got badly confused somewhere, too much pressure.

This is a very fine example of an all too frequent issue with MMO players "The devs SAID that they will do something in this way, but that's obviously not what they mean, right ?" So the player then carries on in the firm belief that his/her interpretation of what was written is actually correct, and is later bitterly disappointed and angry when what was written IS actually implemented ! Until such time as devs start writing 10,000-word blogs explaining in ultimate detail every nuance of impending changes or new features, there will always be "ambiguity" in the often brief descriptions and explanations that we are given. We, as players, often interpret volumes from these scraps of info, especially when we want something to mean what WE want it to mean...

There is clearly a negative change with Lockbox-mission returns. The question is, was it intentional or is it a bug ? It may well be an "unintended consequence" of the other changes that were made to mission crit frequency and rewards. There are a few of those mentioned in the patch notes, and those other changes may have "broken" Lockbox missions. If so, let's hope for an early fix. However, it may also be further "economy balancing" on the part of BW. Crew skill mission schematics sell for very good prices on the GTN. Pre 1.2, you could run Lockbox missions back-to-back with a very good chance of breaking even. But if any of those missions critted, you had a mission schematic that you could sell for a very tidy profit. So, in a way, Lockbox missions offered the chance of good profits, but no potential losses. Perhaps BW noticed this fact...

Ah yes, the mists are clearing slowly What we really need is a clearer distinction between the actions: Reverse Engineering - destroying an item to possibly learn a new schematic Recycling - destroying an item to recover part of the materials used to make it Then we can say that Artificers can "Recycle" any augment, but cannot Reverse Engineer them, for instance. The fact that one game action performs 2 functions is what is causing the confusion for me.

Totally agreed on this issue ! Who decided Fleet needed to sound like an aircraft carrier flightdeck during combat operations ? I simply turn off my speakers when I go to Fleet, it's easier than changing my sound preferences back and forth all the time. The real irony here is that my spaceship hangar is deathly quiet. Somehow I imagined that the hangars would be noisy, whilst the interior of the station would be quiet. Silly me. Turn down the ambient volume inside Fleet PLEASE !

Yup, I'm confused as well, in fact, I'm confused as hell My Synthweaver has a Strength Augment from before 1.2, but it does not allow any RE (not selectable for RE). Afaik, Synthweavers make Strength augs now, so should be able to RE it ? My Armstech has the same problem with RE'ing Endurance augs, i.e. not selectable. My Artificer has all augments selectable for RE (regardless of stat type), but the only augs that don't show "No Research Available" in the tooltip are the Artifact quality ones (purple). In addition, many of the pre 1.2 augs in my inventory now carry double stats, such as Endurance + Aim. According to the patchnotes, Endurance augs are made by Armstech, whereas Aim augs are made by Armormech. So where do these double-combo's come from ? Just a conversion glitch ? This is not the scenario I expected from reading the patch notes...

/signed People using vehicles/mounts indoors in MMO's has always been one of my pet hates Nothing like having someone in a small bus pull up at the mailbox and make 5 players vanish... Just give the vehicle owners an appropriate speed-buff in fleet, once they activate their "mount". No need for those huge speeder models to bulldoze around the narrow corridors.