I've finished four main stories and have almost finished a fifth. Still I find it hard not to skip through conversations. Often I'll find myself mid-planet, heading into a cave or lab or vault with no idea why I was going there. It's way too easy to get lost or disconnected from what's going on and just rely on the mission objectives listed on-screen. I think the issue is that there are simply too many NPCs or story nodes that distract you from the story. You can only deal with so many new names and faces before they become a featureless wash. Think about it. You hit a planet. You wind up visiting five outposts. Each outpost has one persistent story line and 3-4 other minor quests given from different NPCs. By the time you're hitting that final battle, you've been barraged by 20-25 new names to keep track of. It would work much better if storylines were driven by companions. Instead of dealing with ensign blabbity blah and Darth no-name, let our companions be integrated in planet quests and objectives. It would also greatly increase playability because each class would be different. Plus, we get more depth to our character's companions. I know it's too late to do it now, but maybe the next expansion could focus on companions? You don't have to force people to fight with a certain companion, they can be the center of the story just by being in the cut-scene.

1 - WoW 2 - Everquest 3 - SWTOR 4 - DC Online 5 - City of Heroes

This is a minor thing, but I typically add multiple mods to multiple pieces of gear for companions. The process flow is open the character window, click companion, click the item, select the mods and click ok. This then closes out the character window. So for the next piece of gear I have to again open the character window, click companion again and select the next piece of gear. Is it possible for the character window to remain opened and on the companion tab after modifying a piece of companion gear?

Well there's playing a female character, and there's playing AS A FEMALE (that being attempting to convince others you're really a female playing the game). As for the former, I usually play a girl character when I start to get into my 3-5th alt. I usually like to play a calculating witch. The more evil I am, the better. I also have a buddy who helps his daughter level her characters. However, for the latter, I never try to convince people I'm a female. In fact, I usually try to be pretty obvious that I'm a dude. I've been playing MMOs for more than a decade. You never know who's "driving the ship" so to speak. Best to get on voice chat before you start forming ideas of who's playing a friendly toon.

I've been playing MMOs for about 13 years now. It's the same conundrum, and developers can't really win. On one hand, the folks at the endgame want new content and goals. On the other hand when they get them, they complain that all that time spent getting what they had was wasted. I've been through it myself. The secret to enjoying a MMO is simple. If it's not fun, don't do it. I'm not being snarky or condescending either. It's a lesson I learned by wasting hour after hour in digital worlds. If you the only thing you enjoyed about grinding was the gear you got from it, then stop grinding. If you're sick of the same PvP, stop PvPing. No piece of gear or title will ever be enough to make up for a journey you didn't enjoy to get it. The journey IS the point, not the reward at the end of it.