About 17 million from crafting and running crew skill missions. Then I fully unlocked the Yavin SH...

Assassin, with Juggernaut a close second. Assassin pulls ahead as a favourite on gameplay - I get to throw Force Lightning around and use my lightsaber as something other than a stat stick. I prefer the "dark rituals" aspect of the SI, but Force-leaping in and really ruining someone's day as a SW does the trick too.

If you're not bothered about relics while levelling, the main impact is whether you prefer a particular story as Dark or Light. Your choices can have small consequences in the game, as other posters have said. I like Inquisitor as either alignment and had a lot of fun playing as moderately Light. There are a couple of decorations for each alignment - I particularly like the lightsaber forges - and a legacy ability for each alignment when you hit rank 5. In terms of NPC reactions, LS choices can go both ways. Sometimes the LS option is the smarter choice and NPCs will be pleased with you, other times they might get mad at you. Same goes for DS as well: In terms of player reactions, some people don't like LS Imperials and will moan if you hit a LS choice in, say, Black Talon, but most don't really mind.

This is precisely why I like double XP. I've seen the side missions and starter planets. I've done them over and over again. I level characters mainly to experience the class storylines and I like being able to pick and choose what side missions and bonus series I do. It's not about fast levelling or rushing to the level cap, not for me. And incidentally, I loathe dailies That's not to say I lack sympathy for people who dislike double XP, far from it. I understand why some players feel levelling is fast enough already, or that they'd rather do side missions at level and experience them as intended. It'd be great to have the option to turn it off, or to have it off by default and allow players to opt in.

Well, I went straight to Makeb on my level 50 sniper and I felt chronically underlevelled for the content. I'm near the end of the planetary story arc at level 52 and I'm running into level 54/55 enemies. It's do-able and damned good fun, but I get the impression I was meant to go level somewhere else first. I might well hit up Ilum first on subsequent characters.

I was quite pleased with the Imperial SGR. It did feel a little short, but it was a good 'un. I know there have been concerns as to how the NPC romances would compare to the companion ones. Personally, I felt as though I got more out of one relatively short NPC arc than out of some of the companion romances. But that's just my opinion. I also cannot offer any input on things Republic-side.

Darksiders are consigned to Chaos after death, if they don't become Force ghosts (see below). It appears to be the Star Wars equivalent of Hell. Sith Lords tend to stick around as Force ghosts in their tombs or wherever, but it's out of a fear of death or an attachment to the physical realm rather than Jedi altruism. They can corrupt the living and teach them the ways of the Dark Side, as the spirit of Freedon Nadd did to Exar Kun. Most Sith are every bit as selfish and malicious in death as they were in life. Sith can, however, be turned to the Light Side after death and become one with the Force like Jedi. Revan redeemed the spirit of Ajunta Pall in KOTOR and (SI spoilers) I think there are a few examples in the game of Darths whose masters are still alive. Darth Lachris springs to mind, though whether that's because her former master is on the Dark Council I don't know. I'm quite sure you don't need to kill your master to become a Darth.

Thana is a great character and I'd love to see her introduced as a companion, BUT I'd like her to be an optional companion. I don't think I'd ever keep her around permanently. She's one of those characters that actually has me looking forward to Imperial Taris but Frankly, I think she's fun but a bit dense. I found it absolutely hilarious to rile her up for the duration of the planetary story arc but I don't think I'd want her around permanently. However, I think it would be great to have her as an optional companion for those who do want her.

Presumably that's just the people who actively want SGRs to be implemented. I'd imagine the percentage of people who don't mind them being implemented is rather higher. I'd hazard a guess that there aren't that many people who actively oppose SGRs and who will be upset if they're put in the game. If that is the case, the minority vs. majority argument is even sillier.

I get the feeling from Hall Hood's tweet that he would love to be able to give us information but isn't allowed to. Edit: I mean this one:

This. I would mind rather less if I knew what to do with my characters. If the answer were "no", I might not be able to play them exactly as I envisioned them, but I would be able to play them. If I knew I would need to avoid playing them in order to access SGR content, I would be happy to wait for it to be implemented.

My DS Consular is getting very, very tempted...

Maybe the Imperial droids have to be programmed to be polite. Maybe they once had impolite droids and the Sith kept cutting them into bits for being disrespectful. It's like how C2-N2 can get away with being so smug and condescending, yet 2V-R8 constantly begs you to not deactivate him. You know a Jedi probably isn't going to twist your head off and throw it out the airlock for getting on his nerves.

This is why some people are holding off levelling characters or completing companion quests. Some people might consider it unlikely that they will alter existing companions, but we simply don't know that. Not for certain, no matter how likely or unlikely we think it may be. Some people don't want to risk locking themselves out of SGR content on existing characters, since there is a chance that if they do it with existing companions we won't be able to somehow reset companion conversations we have already completed. This comes back to the lack of information. We can speculate all we like but in the end we just don't know. It might be with existing companions or it might not. We might be able to reset conversations or we might not. We might be "safe" if we stopped levelling characters at a certain point or we might have to start all over again. We might have to reach a certain level to unlock a new SGR companion. And so on.

Definitely time PvPers got an update. It's interesting that they have the new warzone and space combat up first, if they are planning to add more to the PTS for 1.6. As you say, you could infer that they want to get that tested before they put something bigger and shinier up for testing. I notice the patch notes/Test Center update describe the new space missions as "50+" and that new 50s will be given Tionese gear for free. The latter might imply they are trying to get everyone reasonably geared for Makeb so it's easier to tune for players just starting to level past 50. *blinks*

1.6 looks like a very sparse patch so far, if the official patch notes are anything to go by. Or perhaps that is in comparison to all the recent excitement... I'm still expecting we'll be seeing more in the coming patch and that the PTS will be updated. Maybe not Makeb, maybe not SGRs. I'd imagine if it was going to be Makeb, they would have said so already.

Reading through this and reading about the 1.5 team and Makeb team being separate, I wonder if the same is going to be true of the 1.6 team. After all Makeb is going to be a mini-expansion of sorts and 1.6 currently looks like just another patch. I would add that we don't know much about 1.6 at the moment and it might be that they're testing the more minor things such as the new warzone before they drop Makeb onto the PTS too. We should know within a week or two what else will be coming with the next patch. Also, it has me thinking that Makeb might be off the "content every six weeks" schedule. Maybe we'll see Makeb a couple of weeks after 1.6 if that is the case.

I'm not sure that it is in any of the actual companion romance arcs, though I believe a couple of classes get a one-night stand with a companion and nothing more. There are, however, quite a few opposite-gender flirts with other NPCs that get shot down. I don't recall there being any actual companion storylines where it's possible to keep on flirting with the companion and they just keep saying no. (If anyone has encountered a companion story arc where this actually happens, feel free to correct me.)

If you're playing a Medicine Operative and not soloing the heroic missions, you may wish to run with a DPS companion once one is available - which is at the end of Alderaan for the Agent. Things will die a lot faster, but you will need to bear in mind that your companion will be more fragile and won't be as good at keeping enemies off you. You can certainly complete the Heroic 2 missions without much trouble as a healing-spec Operative. Just be careful to keep an eye out for roaming enemies and also be sure to use your Sleep Dart crowd control from stealth. I found the Operative to be a very good class for when things go bad. Towards the end of the Act 1 storyline, there was a boss fight where my tanking companion bugged out and ended up stuck under the floor where I couldn't heal her. I was able to complete the fight as a healer without any serious problems. If you don't wish to play that class, all of them are viable for levelling solo without doing any heroic missions at all. Just be sure to keep yourself and your companion geared, remembering to spend your commendations on mods for orange gear, and be sure to complete all the class, planet and bonus missions. I would say that for a new player who is getting used to the game, you may find it easier to choose a class that can heal or that gets a healing companion early on. My first character was a Sniper and I died a few times until I got used to the playstyle. Picking up my healer on Taris helped a lot as well. Great class to play, but you need to be aware that you might suffer a few deaths early on. It's worth considering what role you would prefer to play as. If you want to play a tank or melee DPS, the Sith Juggernaut, Sith Marauder, Powertech (Bounty Hunter) and Jedi Shadow (Consular) all get their healing companions early on, which can make things a lot smoother. If you want to play a healer, the only classes that don't get a tanking companion early on are the Bounty Hunter and Trooper - and I never had problems running with a DPS companion on my Commando. (I haven't played a Mercenary-AC Bounty Hunter, so I cannot comment on that.) Ultimately, I would advise you to play what draws your interest. It's no good me advising you to pick, say, a Sith Sorcerer if you hate playing caster/healer types.

If they've spent the money developing SGRs, it's going to depend on whether they think they'll lose more money through implementing it than through dropping content that's cost them. As you have said, other games haven't suffered. On the contrary, as I have said myself, I am sure they would lose a large chunk of their LGBT playerbase, which would be bad for business in the long term. I can see their reasoning but I think that since they will probably end up implementing the content anyway, you're right in questioning the need for all of this.

Mm. I'm not sure they'd scrap the whole thing, but I wouldn't put it past them to get as much out of the subscriptions as possible before implementing something like SGR.

Oh? Fair enough

Oh yes, I know it's a paranoid, wild theory of mine. I still think we'll be seeing SGRs in the not-too-distant future but the lack of concrete information isn't confidence-inspiring. I'm partly just trying to work through possible reasons for the ongoing silence and that means I'm also considering worst-case scenarios.

I know I am being incredibly paranoid here but I wonder if they're waiting 'til after F2P goes live to tell us it's been scrapped. That way it matters less if people unsub over it. It would still be a stupid move to scrap the whole thing because it would mean a lot of people wouldn't buy Bioware games in the future and I get the impression the company has previously attracted quite a lot of LGBT gamers. Equally, maybe they are waiting 'til F2P goes live to bring out the announcement that will upset the people who don't want SGRs to be included.