Wait, what?

I"m just happy that I'll be able to stealth whenever I want, tank whenever I want, heal whenever I want, all without changing characters. I guess I'm easily pleased

Haha, I left around the same time as Ykesha. I don't think I ever experienced that......

There are so many more of us filthy casuals than hardcore players. I know this from experience. I've been on both sides. I was a hardcore raider in EQ, back in 2001, when game mechanics were actually challenging, and you didn't have a "rotation" to rely on, or voice chat to make communication easier. I got older, my life filled up with other things, and I lost the desire to treat video games as a second job. But I remember making the "learn2play u noob" posts, back in the day. But even EQ had it's share of casual players, even with it's punishing XP grind, corpse runs, farming and camping times. People who wanted to chill out, relax, and make some animated pixels fall over.

I think we need to start differentiating classes from story. You don't have a "core" class. You have a combat style and a story. This game, in essence, is basically dumping classes in the way that we have traditionally thought about them. Now, you will choose a story. We can give these stories names to distinguish them, based on what happens in the story, or even maybe on the unique titles given by that story. Hero of Tython Havok Squad The Barsen'thor Privateer Cipher The Wrath The Hunter Forcewalker This is fixed and cannot be changed, once selected. And then you have 16 combat styles, 8 of which you can switch between on any given character. Force-based: Guardian Sentinel Shadow Sage Juggernaut Marauder Assassin Sorcerer Tech-based: Scoundrel Gunslinger Vanguard Commando Operative Sniper Powertech Mercenary This is not fixed and can be changed at any time during play (dark/light side restrictions for force-classes notwithstanding) Your level, gear, story progression, etc will remain independent of those two things. So your character could be, for example: Level: 60 Story: Hero of Tython Story stage: End of chapter 2. Combat Style: Guardian At this point, you could change your combat style to Sage. Your character would remain at level 60. You would still be playing the Hero of Tython story. And you would still be at the end of Chapter 2, about to head to Belsavis. You could do one mission on Belsavis and then decide you needed stealth for the next mission and switch to Shadow. If you wished to switch to Assassin, or any of the other DS-aligned force combat styles, you'll have to grind out the requisite DS Points (We don't know how this is going to work yet) Or, you could be playing through the Hunter story, using the Commando combat style, so you can mow down Tarro Blood with an assault cannon. But for a given mission, you might decide that being a one-shot, one-kill sniper is more appropriate, so you can instantly switch to the sniper combat style, equip a sniper rifle, and away you go! You don't "switch classes". There is no such thing as a class anymore. (Or there won't be, when the expansion drops). The developers could have decided that you gained individual levels in a combat style, but they chose not to. Bear in mind, all of this post is my interpretation of the information that's been released so far. I could be completely incorrect. Only time will tell.

Just another filthy casual here, been playing since beta. I used to play every day, but even when I played a lot, I never chased achievements, and I never do "hard" content. I play video games to relax and unwind, not to be all hardcore and super-focused. I'm usually watching TV while I play. Oh, and I support simplification of combat skills. For me, TOR has too many buttons. I deal with it because that's kind of the way it is, and it's the only MMO that I've ever played that actually has RPG elements. (I freely admit that I have a different definition of "RPG elements" to most everyone else)

Also, if you saved Ranken as an imp during that part of the EE storyline (on the ship where Scorpio betrays you), Krovos says that she and her family send their regards.

Scourge is in the final JK cut scene, looking extremely uncomfortable Also, I don't know if this is common knowledge, but if you have any Mandalorian with you (Akaavi, Shae Vizla, etc), Indigo has completely different dialogue. I assume it's the same if you actually take a BH to talk to him, but I haven't done that yet. I love those little touches!

Well, they do give you options to say you don't care about Jedi, or to stay silent during the Jedi parts. But ultimately, they're not asking a Knight, or a Consular, or a Trooper or a Smuggler - They're asking the Alliance Commander, whoever that happens to be. It's not as if a Trooper or Smuggler doesn't have experience fighting Sith. All Republic characters fight a ton of Sith through the vanilla story, and you fight force users all over the galaxy after that. If you're pro-republic, helping the Jedi can only be a good thing. And if you're a saboteur, taking any opportunity to sabotage the Republic (by weakening the Jedi) is also a good thing.

Just popped in to say... Email from Narlock's daughter. OMG. :( :( Where's my crying emoji??

I do agree - At rank 50, a healer comp heals better than my Consular unless I'm actually actively working and paying attention.

Yeah, Krovos seems pretty cool. You can kill non-Emperor Vowron and Shaar on Mek-Sha, too. I assume for an Empire player who has Emperor Vowron, you just get to kill Shaar, but I haven't played that one through on my Republic-loving LS SW yet.

Yeah, I remember that being all Quinn, LOL. But now we have a billion comps, LOL I was always disappointed by the change, because personally, my DS JK would have preferred the title of General instead of Master.

Companions are better at healing than anything else. I don't run with companions in anything except heal mode, yes, even on my healer characters.

Responding to the conversations about Makeb, Revan, etc (too much to quote): i think KOTXX represented the nadir of single-player storytelling in TOR. We went from 8 class stories to 2 faction stories down to 1 single story that basically removed every other class from the universe. In vanilla, you had a real sense that the protags of the other class stories were out there, doing their thing, affecting the universe that you lived in. The galaxy changed, based on their actions. For example, the BH's removal of Janarus affected the galaxy for every other class, whether they wanted it to or not. Never forget that the war was re-ignited in Chapter 3, purely on the basis of Hunter's actions in the IA mid-chapter interlude. I'm sure it required a significant amount of plot juggling to keep it all straight, and I tip my hat to the writers for doing so. Then we had Makeb - We dropped from 8 class stories to 2 faction stories. You still had the sense that A. N. Member of the opposite faction was doing things while you were doing things, but there weren't 7 other classes out there all affecting your world. I suspect this was due to budgetary constraints. Making 2 stories with class flavor and tweaks is 4 times cheaper than making 8 completely unique stories. In fact, I suspect given the complexity of keeping 8 stories straight, it was probably more than 4 times cheaper. Revan started out with as 2 faction-based stories, but very quickly showed us that that was a veneer over what was essentially just a single story. Mirror flashpoints, replaceable enemies, etc etc. Introducing Lana and Theron meant that they didn't have to write and record dialogue for 40 different companion characters for every NPC conversation. While I had a lot of fun in vanilla ESC-ing out, then switching different companions to see their various reactions to any given cut scene, it's a metric boatload of writing and recording, especially when you realize that you then have to do it all over again for each language you're localized in. That gets expensive. Fast. Revan was the point where they started the autodialogue infection, too, where I lost control over every little thing that my character says. I still had control over a lot of the important parts, but a lot of it was taken away from me, and my character would speak lines without me being given a choice. For every choice they replace with autodialogue, it cuts their costs by a 1/3rd, because that's 2 other lines they don't need to write and record in multiple languages. (and differing NPC responses they have to write and record) KoTXX dropped the pretense entirely. Now there's no more "other" class protagonists. The log entries very clearly state that all the other class protags "mysteriously vanished" at the start of the Eternal Empire's invasion. Prior to KoTXX, all those characters existed. The Champion of the Great Hunt, the Hero of Tython, Cypher 9, the Barsen'thor, Nox/Imperius, the Wrath, etc etc etc, there was exactly 1 of those in every "parallel reality" of TOR that existed, at least that's how it worked in my own headcanon. But all of the ones that aren't the character that you happen to be playing - are NPCs. TOR is very much your story, and everyone else is an NPC in it. I could go on at length about the mental gymnastics required to hold multiple parallel realities in your head when you're grouped with other players, or when you're playing an alt, but I'm a roleplayer, we're used to that kind of stuff, haha. I'm sure other people who RP in TOR understand where I'm coming from. And at the start of KoTXX, all those other NPCs mysteriously vanished. If you're playing an Agent, T4's profile clearly states that he traveled the galaxy with the hero of tython until said hero vanished at the start of the war. Boom, gone. It became a single player story and a single player universe. And more autodialogue. Of course writing 8 individual paths through the KoTXX story, each leading to the same conclusion of "Defeat Valkorian" would have been ... nightmareish, I think. In vanilla, each class contributed in its own way to the end of the war. KoTXX's story did not lend itself nearly as well to an 8-person (or even 4-person, faction based) collaborative end to Valkorian. One class would always have had to shine, being "the one" that actually ended him and while the JK was the one that killed Vitiate, it wasn't the war-ending masterstroke that hailed them as the super special chosen class that ended the war, rendering all the other classes as supporting roles. No, KoTXX was always a single player story, and removing the majority of class specific things saved them even more money (both on the player side and the NPC reactions side). Variations existed, but they were much reduced. IMO, the KotXX story has enough player choice that adding in class-based player choice as well, would have made the task gargantuan, and it already took too long for each chapter to come out. Player complaints about the speed are why we had abbreviated alliance alerts for people like Mako, Andronikus, etc. Our second visit to Iokath started to open things up a bit again. We're still the "only" protagonist in the galaxy, but at least now the game is giving us some choices and recognizing our backgrounds, faction affiliation, that kind of thing. Thematically, it made sense. With the Eternal Empire no longer a threat, the Republic and the Empire can - as Vitiate said - go back to doing what they do best - Making war. Iokath felt like Revan or Oricon to me - Mirrored missions, replaceable enemies again. (And perhaps Oricon is the best analogy, because like Oricon, I have never seen the end of it, because I don't raid) I don't know if we'll ever get back to 8 class stories, especially since all those other class protags have mysteriously vanished. If the PC was a Barsen'thor, they'd probably want to know what the celebrated Hero of Tython was doing during KotXX. But right now, I'm very happy with the two faction stories, (four, if you count saboteur variants), and the way that each faction story feels different based on which class I happen to be playing. Vowran doesn't call my Agent "old friend". That's reserved for my Sith Warrior. (didn't stop my Warrior from killing him at the end, of course ) And the game feels like TOR again to me. That makes me very happy. It's an indefinable thing, but I feel like they got it right this time around.

It's not really flashpoint style - it's more a shortcut to get you to the place where you'd normally click on the NPC to start the initial cutscene. It's a bit like how Rishi starts. You can fly there in your ship, if you really want, travel by foot and speeder to the instance, and then click the NPC manually, if that's how you prefer to do it. In most of them, if you want, you can ESC out of that cut scene and it drops you back in the world where you're supposed to be. I'm just glad that let us bring our friends into those instances like they do with KoTXX - I hate forced solo stuff like the forced solo flashpoints all through the Theron stuff - Umbara, Copero, Nathema, I'm looking at you. I'm playing an MMO, I want to play with my friends, I want to help them with the combat, and I want to experience their story choices (as a spectator) in those flashpoints.

During beta, if you were a DS Knight, Satele refused to grant you the title of master at the end of the story (and the republic army gave you the title of general instead - Something like "We don't care if this person doesn't fit your model of Jedi, they've killed lots of our enemies, so we're going to make them a general") But like the decision to not space companions you don't like - that was removed from the game because DS Knight players complained about not getting the Master title.

I liked the story. I thought both sides dovetailed rather nicely, like Makeb, and rather more smoothly than Corellia the first time around. I played Empire first, and was very pleasantly surprised to find that the first Republic mission is basically thwarting the final Empire mission. One assumes that since we're no longer writing stories that feature 8 potential protagonists in the galaxy, that if you're playing a Republic character, the Empire were doing all the things that happened in the Empire story, but without an Alliance Commander they weren't doing them nearly as proficiently or successfully. The story definitely had a Makeb feeling to it, but better. I'm a sucker for that intertwining story feel, kind of how the vanilla class stories touched on each other. Kudos to the writers for that. I suspect it's fun to write, too. Loved the dialogue, both sides. Everybody was very much in character, and Anri and Tau are definitely growing on me. I'm looking forward to running it on all of my characters. The only thing story-wise i was briefly confused about was Scourge and Kira's timeline. Since we saw Satele alive and well in Nathema 2, if you kill Theron, one assumes that she is only recently in this coma? Or did they specifically state that and I missed it? My impression of the timeline is: KoTXX starts. At some indeterminate point in time after that, Scourge and Kira give up trying to find the Hero of Tython, and go off to find Vitiate instead. (At least, that's what they know him as, at that time) - We know they tried to find the JK for a while - Doc says that they all stayed together for a little bit, but then he lost them and couldn't find them again, that's how he (Doc) ends up on Ossus. It takes them until the end of KoTXX to find him (5+ years? That's why they weren't in KoTXX, and why Lana couldn't find them?), right when the Outlander is doing his final-battle-in-my-mind thing. They destroy the body, just as the Outlander destroys the spirit. Events of Iokath 2, Umbara, Copera, Nathema 2. Scourge and Kira are still taking a nap. Some time during Ossus, Satele finds them and wakes them up, putting herself into the new force coma. They make their way to Mek-Sha to track down the Alliance Commander to make sure they don't have any lingering remnants of Tenebrae inside their head, and that's where we first (re)meet them Does that sound right to everyone? p.s. Also, is Chancellor Rans related to the former Supreme Commander Rans in any way? He was a human, as I recall.... Husband and wife?

I'll try again later tonight. I went to the location on the map, and run around that whole area, and nothing triggered I have two BHs, one male and one female, and I was trying it on the non-romanced female first, because I think my male BH is going to dump Mako, and I kind of didn't want to see that scene yet, lol. But I'll try it on my male BH tonight and see if it makes a difference. If it does, I'll file a bug report with BW

Akaavi return was sweet, as expected - Don't like the fact that my smuggler had some autodialogue, but it is what it is. I'm having a really difficult time triggering Mako on my BH though. I go to the location in Mos Ila, and there's no cut scene like there was on the smug. Any ideas?

What's the good word, BW? Noticed the server ping rising, then the little indicator thing went red and the game froze. Logged out (had to force quit), fired up the launcher again, then boom. Can't log in.

So, I bought Imp. Speeder IV on one of my toons. It seemed to auto-purchase ranks, I, II and III. This would imply that the only way to get Speed Piloting IV is to accept that you're going to get all the previous speeder ranks early. I'll have to test it on a lower level alt.

That would kind of be hilarious, because if you do that, it'll unlock Rank 4 at level 30, 5 levels before you get Rank 3, in the normal progression, LOL

So... I'm confused. The patch notes say that we have two new Speeder Piloting Ranks, 4 and 5 and that they're a legacy unlock. So I got into the legacy tab and the only reference to Speeder Piloting 4 and 5 that I can find is in the section with IMPROVED Speeder Piloting, which historically has only ever been used to unlock the ability to train a speeder rank -EARLY-, not actually grant a rank itself. Where do I get the actual training from? I don't want it early, I just want to have it. Or is that now the only way to get the new ranks? I have never purchased any of the Improved Speeder Piloting perks, as I've never felt the need to purchase the ability to train them early; I was always happy to get them when I get them. Currently, as a sub, I get Speeder 2 at L25, and Speeder 3 at 35. If I purchase the Improved Speeder Piloting 4, then technically, I should be able to have rank 4 before I even get 3, LOL. Is that how it now works? Or do I have to buy Imp. Speeder 1, 2 and 3 before I can get Imp. Speeder 4, and that's the ONLY way to get a 120% speed Speeder?

This is incorrect. Here's a chart of all PC sizes, next to each other. https://www.dropbox.com/s/n857hyi607pupkx/PC-Size-Overview.png?dl=0 F1 and F4 are actually the same height. F2 is the same height as M1. F3 is the almost the same height as M2 and M4 (Bet you didn't think that, did you?) and M3 is, of course, the tallest. If I were to put actual heights on them, I'd assume that - as baseline - let's say that M2 is 6 feet tall. 6 feet is about what fictional heroic males are supposed to be. That puts M3 at around 6'6". I'm thinking more Triple-H in his prime rather than The Undertaker. The chart shows F3 are being fractionally shorter than M2. Now that could be the camera angle of the screenshots that I took, but 5'10, 5'11" would fit for a tall, athletic Xena/amazon-type. M4 looks to be the same height as F3 - Again, that could be camera angle. Obviously, he's much more bulky. M1 and F2 are around 5'6". Interesting side comment: 5 and a half feet is - last time I looked - actually median height for a caucasian female. And then F1/F4 aren't -much- shorter than F2, maybe 2 inches. So they're not down at the 5-foot level, but more 5'3" ish. That's just my take on it. p.s. M4 is wide, certainly, but there's a lot of muscle under there. He's not a couch potato. He's more like a big linebacker, or short defensive tackle. He's kind of what you'd get if you shaved a bear. Underestimating how strong M4 is and writing him off as just as "a fatty", I think, would be a mistake.