I have only played a JC through Act I of the story, so I freely admit to not having the full picture but I do have some thoughts about this. The JC storyline, at least in Act I, is about sacrifice. Your character gives up their own strength and power to shield others and is "weaker" as a result. A lot of players don't want or like that; they want to be the strongest they can be. A lot of them, and I'm going to be biased here and say that this is particularly true of those who play Sith for the most part, do not understand the idea of sacrificing for another. They'd just want to kill the infected Masters and show how bad *** awesome they are. It challenges the typical MMO approach/story of getting to be uber-strong and just smashing your way through whatever the danger is. At least for most of it, the threat is one you can't fight directly and that turns off a lot of people too. There's also an aspect of redemption; the corrupted masters have done some bad things and many players feel they should be "punishing" them (back to the killing thing above) rather than healing them. I may be off on that, but that's what I've taken away from people talking about this in General or even in other parts of the forums.

I play mainly Republic, but I have a few Empire characters as well. I will openly say that I am heavily Republic leaning in my play and personal philosophy. The only reason I play Empire at all is because of friends of mine who play that side that I want to talk to/game with. I've noticed that most of the pro-Empire posts here have to insert hypotheticals or brush off parts of Imperial doctrine/culture that undermine their argument. IF the Emperor was good, IF the Sith were fair and noble minded. IF this and If that. They aren't; no amount of what ifs will change that. The reality is that the Empire is rabidly xenophobic and genocidal, elitist to an extent that even humans who can't use the Force are second class citizens and can be slain on a whim by their Sith overlords, and that any social mobility is an illusion unless you're a Sith. Because even if you're a Moff, some punk Sith can still decide to part your hair with a lightning bolt and it's his right to do so. And even if you are Sith, you can be murdered by your fellows (who are encouraged to do so) if they want your stuff and it will be institutionally ignored. Playing Empire side, I've lost count of how many missions I've had to do that are all the result of Darth Ponderous or Lord Pretensor's grudge/pet project/cause being put forth and dozens/hundreds/thousands of lives and millions of credits wasted by the Empire. That seems pretty corrupt to me. The OP also castigated the Republic for allowing slavery in other governments but the fact that the Empire openly enslaves hundreds of millions of people is all right somehow. There is no slavery in the Republic; it is illegal and those who practice it are criminals who are pursued and prosecuted when caught. If there is slavery in parts of the galaxy that are not part of the Republic, it is not their job to make other governments do what they want. They control their territory, their citizens, and their laws, not that of other people. The Republic is flawed; there's no such thing as a perfect government of any kind but any one that is based on the activity and will of the populace will be as flawed as people are. The Republic as an institution is more fair, more open, and more capable of change and advancement. There will be corruption, because some people are corrupt but it's not the institutionalized and accepted corruption of the Sith Empire. The corruption can also be expunged more easily; in a democracy, the government can be overthrown whenever the populace wants it to be and change effected. If the people want it and are willing to buckle down and do it, all the structures and systems are in place to effect change. It's not that it is perfect but that it can be that way if the people try hard enough. Reformers in the Republic build support, win small victories and build on them, gaining momentum until change is effected. Reformers in the Empire are killed. In the Empire, there's no reason to want to change anything and even if you did, there's no way to do it without a coup d'etat, the structure doesn't support that kind of thing. The more terrible parts of the Empire are, in fact, essential for it's functioning. The Empire needs slavery; it couldn't afford to do all the things it does if it had to pay for all that work/food/equipment. The Empire needs xenophobia because it keeps the ruling class from completely disintegrating into paranoid massacres that would fracture it immediately; it creates a boogeyman for them all to unite against. The Jedi and the Republic work the same way for that purpose. The Empire's evil is part of the institution and thus any attempt to change it would have to fundamentally remake the institution itself.

I should preface my comments by saying that I haven't read any of the books you're talking about. My Mandalorian experience has essentially come from the movies (which I'm not entirely sure even ever have the word Mandalorian come up in them), the 90's Star Wars books (when I was a kid), and the KotOR series of games. I'd also state that this is just my opinion; I feel it's got a solid basis but it is just that. I know that for me, my biggest problems with the Mandalorians don't have anything to do with them fighting/killing Jedi or Sith. Jedi are mortal, death happens. I'm fine with Jedi and Sith being killed by normal people; particularly if they're careless/sloppy/weakened/etc. That's how fighting works, no matter how good you are. There are two things that bother me about them. First, it's that they spout a lot of what seems to be crap about honor and fighting worthy opponents and then act like cowards. I remember a companion conversation with Canderous Ordo in KotOR I where he glowingly tells you about some orbital dive attack he was in against a planet that had no defenses anyway and talks about that as an example of how great the Mandalorians are. (It has been a while since I played the game, but I think I recall the gist of that conversation) Okay, you can sucker punch people who aren't able to fight back; what does that have to do with honor or proving your strength? Similarly, in their other conflicts that I know of (mostly in the games, including TOR) the Mandalorians surprise attack, usually when there's an existing conflict happening so they don't have to fight an already engaged professional military. As I recall the history of TOR, that was their involvement in the Great Galactic War. That's just personal though, there are some people who like that kind of culture and they're welcome to it. The larger issue for me is that the Mandalorians aren't original. I'm going to get lots of hate for even saying this, but this warrior culture thing was done in mainstream sci-fi/space opera before Star Wars and that's my (personally) biggest problem with them; they're Klingons with a different color palette and not as tight pants. Fewer head lobsters too. Warrior culture based on personal honor and glory in combat? Check. Talking big about fighting directly and with honor and then sneak attacking? Check. Idiomatic sayings based on those of Earth warrior cultures? Check. Their own made-up language? Check. Disdain for those who are "sneaky" or "underhanded" despite doing the same things themselves? Check. Strong 1st quarter team that fades in the second half? Check. I think that's one of the big problems with the Mandalorians for a lot of people. They've been done before, some would say better, some would say worse; but either way they really feel like taking a chunk of someone else's universe and trying to shoehorn it into Star Wars where it doesn't necessarily fit.

"I sense something; a presence I've not felt since- *suddenly and dramatically turn away*" Perfect way to end any conversation; particularly those you didn't want to be part of in the first place.

All right! Not completely wrong! That is interesting, what you said about Darth Marr. It might have been that Marr didn't know Malgus' intentions as a reformer; I'd imagine he hid them well. It might also have been that both Darth Marr and Darth Malgus wanted to the "the one" to change the Sith Empire, not "one of the ones," if that makes sense. There's a pretty strong only one person at the top thing with the Sith, even if they're run by a council while the Emperor's on the can (or whatever he's doing). Not to break from lore, but I suspect is the main reason is that the writers and developers didn't want Darth Malgus on the Council for the whole False Emperor thing or other storylines. So even if it made sense, they wanted to keep him as an inside-outsider.

I think for some of them it's an issue of programming and time allocation. For the starting planets, since the PCs won't have their ships yet (or lose them in the Smuggler's case), Bioware just never made a cinema of the character's ships landing on Tython/Ord Mantell/Hutta/Korriban and thus when you go there later, it can't show you landing on the planet, so they do the orbital station work around. I could be wrong, of course, but that's my suspicion. As for other worlds that have them, your guess is as good as mine on that front.

Apologies in advance if I'm mistaken in my lore here, I am not a Sith expert. I think politics played a big part in why Malgus wasn't on the Dark Council (please correct me if I'm wrong and he actually was at one point). In the lore I've read, he went against the Council on more than one occasion. He was successful in what he did so it was overlooked in terms of punishment but it was something that wouldn't sit well with a lot of powerful Sith. He also was married to an alien, even if he did eventually kill her, and the Sith are racist enough to hold that against him. So you have a very powerful and very skilled radical who had ignored your authority before and has widespread support among certain parts of the military. I think they took a look at that and assumed that the second he was on the Dark Council, it would be bloody coup d'etat time. It might have been a smart move to put him on it though. Making him part of the system might have blunted his radical edge a bit and made him try to work within it, but I don't think the other Sith on the Council would be willing to take that risk.

There's a grand tradition of big guys in massive powered armor with tiny, tiny heads in sci-fi. I'll admit to not liking the looks of most of the helmets I've had with any of my characters, so I usually turn them off. Sometimes the armor can make it look a little strange but I also just like seeing my character's face in dialogues instead of a helmet; I want to be the hero, not my armor. I do also run with Body Type 2 so that might make a difference. I have tried Body Type 3 as a male character before and just thought it was too over the top.

Jedi Knight - Kira started a running sabbac game when Ramza (my male JK) got his ship, even bullying C2 into playing. T7 is way ahead of everyone else (little droid has no tell). - Doc keeps trying to give Ramza advice and lines to use on Kira and has appointed himself his "mentor in the ways of women." - C2 never puts more padding into any of the seats in the medbay or Doc's quarters and always gives him less food than the rest of the crew, as he thinks Doc is a "disreputable ruffian."

Dromund Kass. Not sure what it is exactly that makes it so displeasing to me but all my Imperial characters bogged down after getting there because I just disliked playing on that planet so much. I had to make myself play through it with a "grit your teeth and get it over with" mindset.

It seems to me from reading the link there that playing a Gray Jedi is more along the lines of a role playing character choice than a rules/game play element. All of my Jedi characters have some Dark Side points for one reason or another, and in conversations with the various Masters I don't always agree with them, but I don't see how that makes me "gray" as much as a different kind of Light Side. I think a bit part of it is the basis of KOTOR I and II. While certain characters would express a Gray mentality, the games systems rewarded extremes more. Since those were the basis for TOR, I'd assume that theme carried through. One thing you might want to consider as a way to keep to a fully neutral position and still access relics would be use the Diplomacy Crew Skill to earn whichever way you wanted to go for relics and allow your conversation options to be whatever you wanted.

A lot of good comments here but I think the biggest one to remember is that one of the big things that MMO players often cite as something they enjoy is character customization. It's one of the reasons games like City of Heroes stuck around for years well after the bulk of their play group moved on; you could customize the appearance of your character to an almost ridiculous extent. Adding weapons like the axes is a way to offer players a little more customization. I'm not planning on using them for any of my characters but I think it's cool that they're out there as an option if people want them. Makes a nice alternate weapon too for any one who wants to RP a Jedi/Sith who's "turned away from the Order" or started following some new ethic like the Mandalorian honor code or what have you, since the lightsaber is such a symbol.

I think it's actually a technical thing. From what I've read, there isn't a skin that was made for Togruta females to be that bare and still have their skin color and markings, etc. So they put the body suit thing on there as a place filler since they didn't have a skin for her. The developers/artists just never got to making one or it was never implemented if it does exist. I read that on another thread when they first put out the adaptive armor rules. I don't know if any of the other female companions are like that or not.

Very happy to see these little changes too. I know there are things other people really want and have been talking about for a long time, but since I started playing one of my big things has been companion head gear. I'm ecstatic that we'll be able to hide their head gear. For me it'll add a lot to the cinematic quality of the game and the visual appeal. The companion color matching is also a great thing. No more companions looking like patchwork hobos! My Trooper's companions can look like a military unit!

KOTOR: The graphics might look strange now but for their time they were fantastic and polished. I played this game a lot; several playthroughs making different choices and such. I've loaded it onto every computer I've had since I bought it and played it through once. I loved the characters and the story; it was incredibly immersive and fun. KOTOR2: It was a prettier game and the game mechanics were an improvement but it felt unfinished, rushed, and somewhat schizophrenic the whole way through. The root plot was very intriguing but it was also quite muddled and never fully fleshed out or made sense to me. There were whole plot lines that just kind of petered out or ended abruptly with no real conclusion, making the end product feel anticlimactic and very rough. It's a game that I wish was better than it was because I wanted to like it more than I did.

That line actually made me laugh out loud and say "Amen to that, sister." I've found that I end up talking back to Kira's lines more than I do with companions for my other characters. She also has more to say than a lot of them; I play a Vanguard Trooper too and take Elara Dorne with me and she rarely says anything going into new areas or anything like that.

It's a cup holder for a jug of your sports drink of choice! For the Jedi, time to replenish electrolytes as well!

Agreed! Read through the blog a little and have found it charming and insightful. Please continue!

What you're essentially saying is that this, and every game, should be either fully phased or content should then be inaccessible once one person completes it. While I realize that is not directly your statement, it is where your argument is going. I understand the root of your frustration but at the same time it seems naive to an almost ridiculous extent to expect that the game could reflect this. Phasing as a game technology is still relatively new, and while usable is also very resource consumptive. The other option is, of course, ludicrous. However, there's an essential flaw in the rhetoric of repetition of deeds devaluing them. The deed/event is still a challenge that you have, ideally, enjoyed. That experience and the enjoyment of it can only be negated by you. The fact that others have completed the same content in the same game does nothing to you or your achievement. That's their achievement. Not wanting them to have it to make your own unique is dramatically narcissistic and appears willfully ignorant of the reality of games of any kind. I say that because if this is a crisis point for you, it's worth noting that this is not an MMO only problem. At risk of being a snide tool, I hate to tell you that you are not the only one to have played Mass Effect 3 or God of War or whatever other games you have played. Millions of other people have played the same game and done the same things, gotten the same endings. Does that devalue those games? What if you start a new game? I've never posted this before because I believe it's a cop-out and passive aggressive response, but if this is bothering you so much, MMOs and maybe all video games may be the wrong kind of entertainment for you. There's no really feasible way for a company to produce the kind of experience you seem to want. You might also want to consider doing table-top/pen and paper RPGs, as there your deeds can be the only ones that matter and dramatically and visibly shape the universe around you. Unless you have a problem knowing that other people might be playing the same game somewhere, therefore nullifying your efforts. To get back to the original point of the OP, however, I would also point out that this as a problem would make playing in the Rebellion/Galactic Empire Era even worse than feeling this way in TOR. Setting the game in an unknown time or a time that Bioware has themselves helped create allows them to now have to work the players "around" the story. They can let it be the players story and let you be the hero. Referencing other MMOs is always risky, but one good thing to look at might be Lord of the Rings Online. It suffers from this a great deal in many ways; because if you've read the books or seen the movies, you know the real important stuff is being done by others somewhere else. Your efforts are important, and they help, but that feeling that you're just supporting cast never really goes away. At least, not for me. Putting the game in the era of the movies would have been a big mistake and just given them more canon and headaches to work around.

Glad to see so many people just as crazy as I am to give the ships names. More RPers out there than I expected. My Jedi Knight's ship is the Homefront ; so named because it's really the only steady home he has and he takes it with him into every battle and conflict he goes to. My Trooper's ship is Warning Shot because it showing up is the first and only warning shot the bad guys are going to get. My other alts haven't gotten their ships yet, but I'm sure they'll have names too when the time comes.

Got to throw in my two credits here. I will admit this is all based on my personal enjoyment of characters and nothing else. Though I will say that my number one is a universal truth. I also know only a tiny bit about the Extended Universe, so take that for what it's worth. 1. Han Solo - The Man, The Myth, The Legend. Any Top 5 that does not include him is fundamentally flawed. 2. R2-D2 - Don't really like or dislike it, but it's there from the beginning and is an essential to the adventures. 3. Chewbacca - This needs no explanation. 4. Lando Calrissian - People aren't going to get this but Lando's one of the best and most complex of the SW characters, particularly the movie characters. He's also cool as hell but he's not as central to the story so he's only number 4. 5. Tie: Carth Onasi/T3-M4 - Couldn't choose between these two, which I admit is a cop-out. T3 is everything R2 is AND is armed. Carth Onasi is the (as far as I know) original double blasting gunslinger who seems to get a rep fro being a wuss despite being the best non-force using character in KoToR for mowing down scores of Sith Troopers. Honorable Mentions: Ackbar, Thrawn, Wedge Antilles, and Mission Vao.

I note that the discussion has changed to attacks on the Republic as a government rather than violence in the Jedi Code. Ah, the things you miss when life gets in the way. Although historical precedence would argue against your point in many respects. Long term evils that are institutionalized and normalized with the morals of a society have consistency proven harder to eliminate in the long term than activities that were immoral and hidden by a society that preached against them. Slavery in the United States is a very good example of the former; study of early post-Revolution US politics shows an awareness on the part of many that slavery is wrong and should end. However, it had been institutionalized and made part of the legal framework of the nation and was diabolically hard to even talk about, let alone end. Several of the Founding Fathers and others of their generation wanted to do something about but the practice was not only culturally entrenched but legally so as well. Had it simply been an illegal activity conducted by members of the society, once found it could be eliminated with criminal prosecution and that would be the end of it. Since it was culturally and legally enshrined it took another 70+ years, millions of deaths, and unknown loss of resources to accomplish the end of slavery. On the other hand, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment was conducted in secrecy in a culture and society that rejected such acts as abhorrent and when it was discovered, changes were made to existing laws, rules, and structures to ensure that it could not happen again. There would have been no moral outcry in such experiments were widely known about and accepted as part of the culture and legal system. It would have taken a much greater effort to put the current laws and rules that govern human experimentation into effect. Both cases taken together show that when something is official, it is accepted. Even by many who find it morally objectionable or horrific, because it is part of the system and the way things are. That is the case for things such as slavery, alien genocide, etc. in the Sith Empire. They are the rule. There are legal and cultural precedence and inertia that any attempt to rectify those evils would have to overcome. In the Republic, those same things are illegal. When they are discovered, they are stamped out. The incidents of slavery seen in the movies, games, and such take place not in Republic space but in Imperial, or more often, Hutt or unaffiliated space. Blaming either the Republic or the Jedi for what happens there is quite a stretch. The argument for the Republic as a bully is also a big difficult to seriously consider once the sequence of events is taken into account. In TOR, the war ended by the Treaty of Coruscant ended with the Sith Empire attacked the Republic. They picked the fight. In KOTOR, the Sith led by Revan attacked the Republic. In the Great Hyperspace War, the Sith started it all by attacking the Republic. There may be a theme you notice here. In each case, the Republic is larger than the Sith Empire, has more people, more resources, more industry, and that tells in time. That does not make the Republic a bully. The Sith Empire picked a fight with a bigger kid. That does not make the bigger kid evil or a bully when they hit back. To again use a historical occurrence, the Empire of Japan attacked the much larger, much richer, much more industrialized nation of the United States. No one would look at the rest of World War II and say that it was immoral of the US to fight back. This is the same situation. However, I will also say again that this does not seem to have much to do with Jedi and their use of violence. Perhaps this should be the topic of another thread?

How do you know that Luke knew the offer would be refused? Was it likely? Certainly. That doesn't alter that making the offer is a clear attempt to avoid violence and destruction. The fact that Luke expected Jabba would say no and planned accordingly doesn't make him a hypocrite or dishonest; it means he knew the person he'd be negotiating with and planned for a likely contingency. It's logical, not aggressive or vindictive. You could make this argument if he had followed through with the attack et al. AFTER Jabba accepted the money, but just because an offer was made and not taken, and wasn't likely to be taken in the first place, does not negate it or change the fact that a non-violent path was offered. All of Jabba's actions were also crimes as they were not part of Imperial law. Technically, it wasn't really Han who owed Jabba money for the lost cargo, it was the Empire for causing him to ditch it. But since the cargo was illegal in the first place, appealing to a sense of Jabba the Hutt as a law abiding citizen unjustly persecuted is a bit of a reach. A point's been made a few times in this thread that's worth repeating as well. The Jedi Code is not about violence at all; it is about maintaining harmony and peace. That's a key point because it means that the Jedi do not look at violence as an end but a means, and one they prefer to avoid if possible. In the examples of Luke Skywalker and Mace Windu above, both Jedi gave their opponents the opportunity to surrender without bloodshed or outright be paid for their trouble and left alone. The fact that neither enemy accepted isn't on the Jedi; let us not take the responsibility for their own actions from either Sidious or Jabba. They made choices too; hardly being passive individuals who did not act to affect the outcomes around them. There's also a strong element of Utilitarianism in Jedi philosophy in general; a weighing of actions and consequences. Using violence is something that disrupts peace, which is bad in itself, but if doing so gains longer lasting harmony for more sentient beings then it is a correct action. The relative "weights" or the goods and bads must be considered, as well as the final outcome. The one that results in the most good for the most people is correct, even if it involves violence or attacking. If my Jedi Knight flies a space mission where he attacks an Imperial Space Station that's being used to attack outlying Republic systems, that is a defensive action. Because it's goal is not to counter an immediate attack but future assaults that will come and therefore harm others, destroy life and property, and defend the rights and long term peace and happiness of those systems. The act is an aggressive action but the reasoning behind it is defensive. Disorder and harm already exist; committing the attack, while harmful and violent, will make peace possible again, thus it is correct from the Jedi perspective. If the Station was just floating there or was a hydroponics plant, it wouldn't be attacked by a Jedi as that would be creating discord where there was none. An earlier poster also mentioned that this isn't an absolute thing and they are exactly right. Obi-Wan Kenobi says that only Sith deal in absolutes. Expecting an absolute rule and seeing the absence of one does not make the Jedi hypocrites for not having it; it simply reveals deep seated differences in point of view and philosophical approach.

I have to second Satele Shan for an action figure. I'd also put Darth Zash on the list as well. For those who've played the Jedi Knight storyline, an Agent Galen or Lord Sadic that came with "Power Guard" pieces you could attach to them would be a blast. I also think M1-4X would make a great toy; especially if he had a button or pull cord that was set with some of his crazier lines. "We will fly this metal eagle of freedom," that kind of thing.

A compendium of trousers and pants for those who worry over tripping on a hem during battle? Fantastic! I was looking on Torhead for orange trouser/pants and found several within the level range I was looking for, but no listing of how or where to get them. The social ones are easy enough, no problems there, same thing with the Fleet ones, but does anyone know where or how to find/obtain the following? Recluse's Pants http://www.torhead.com/item/boHyxs8/recluses-pants Wanderer's Pants http://www.torhead.com/item/e0JYLHv/wanderers-pants Aristocrat's Pants http://www.torhead.com/item/4cgOaKn/aristocrats-pants Hiking Pants http://www.torhead.com/item/8eXGE2J/hiking-pants If anyone has pics of what they look like, that would be great too, but with the color matching feature I'm less worried about that and more about actually trying to get them. Any thoughts would be appreciated!