I too laid out some cash for this last night. I kinda regret it at this point. It's long and squirrely to drive. It will take some getting used to. The looks are unique (obviously). Whoever designed it put a lot of work into designing the drivers seat. It would make a cool mount all on it's own. The engines though, look like something from a tacky fair ground ride. They don't match the look of the seat at all. Also, expect these to start showing up in re-skinned colors soon. Pretty soon Fleet will be crawling with them, i'm quite sure.

Just use the groupfinder to queue for some of the easier ones first. Taral V (when they get it fixed) and Esseles aren't too bad once you know the encounters a bit. "Knowing the fights" is kind of innocuous. Go read the guides on dulfy.net so you understand what the basic tactics are for the bosses. Most of these fights are tactics fights and not really gear checks. Once you know how to deal with Darth Malgus, Grand Moff Kilran, Ironfist, etc... The fights become pretty easy (with a capable group). Another suggestion. Find some solid players and add them to your friends list. If you can pre-group with one or two people (or even 3 if possible) that you know and are used to playing with, it makes it all that much easier. Oh, and one last piece of advice. Avoid Lost Island [HARD]. At least early on, unless you are grouped with people who know those fights well.. Otherwise.. well it will be painful (and expensive).

All, After a nightmare of a gaming session last night dealing with the Taral V Flashpoint bug (the one where you get locked in the room after killing the droid).... Could we please ask that you put a link on the patcher to the "Known Issues" thread, and please keep it updated with CURRENT "WE ARE CURRENTLY INVESTIGATING THE FOLLOWING ISSUES" information? Myself and several guild mates spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to get the [HARD] mode flashpoint groupfinder daily yesterday because we DID NOT KNOW THERE WAS A PROBLEM! There was a post from a Dev in a random thread in the Customer Service forum yesterday afternoon, but nothing has been posted since (as of 9:30AM PST today). The "Known Issues" thread hasn't been updated since Jan 18th.. a week ago, and before this last patch (weren't some bugs fixed in this patch?) Meanwhile, players are continuing to queue for, and get assigned to this Flashpoint, not knowing it's broken. REALLY SUPER FRUSTRATING!!

Um.. not sure how your gaming day went, but mine went something like this... Yesterday, myself and a few guildmates queued for the groupfinder daily (random hard mode). We were pretty happy to get Taral V, as it's one we can get through pretty quickly (yes, we usually kill the bosses). After killing the droid, we end up trapped in the room with the console. We tried everything we could to get past it, but ended up abandoning the mission, resetting phases, and re-queuing for the groupfinder. Guess what... We got Taral V again.. We tried it again, assuming it was just a temporary glitch... Nope, still broke after the second try (this time we skipped the droid)... So we queue again.. We get Taral V again.... FIVE FRICKIN' TIMES IN A ROW!! We finally just gave up and logged off for the night... If that isn't game breaking, I don't know what is. It certainly broke my enthusiasm to play the game last night.. and isn't that why we play? to have fun? Last night was sooo not fun... I understand that bugs happen. I've been playing MMO's a long time and have suffered through some nightmares when it comes to dealing with bugs... They are... forgiveable to a degree.. The problem is, they are not letting players know about this, and just leaving them to flounder through it not knowing if the problem is something they did, or a temporary bug, or whatever.. Maybe, if there was something preventing you from queuing for this (and still get your daily/weekly), or at least letting players know via the patcher message, it might not be so bad. Maybe having a link to the "Known Issues" right on the patcher screen might help... (as long as it gets updated with 'we are currently investigating' stuff).

Being someone with a very common name in RL, I don't really have a problem with it from an identity standpoint. I lost a great legacy name when I transferred because someone else had it. I don't like the one I have now. I've never seen anyone online using the name i wanted, so i'm going to use it (once we are allowed to change).

I have one level 50... in EACH CHARACTER SLOT!

I enjoy the Female characters more than male. All 8 of mine are female. I tried a couple of males, and ended up deleting them because I didn't like something about them (voice, looks, animation, etc...).. I don't think of the character as an extension of me personally any more than a movie director thinks of actors and actresses as and extension of themselves. I look at it like I'm a movie director directing a lead character through a story. Most of my female characters are small bodies (1 or 2), and I play them as bad-*** butt kickers, because that's what is fun for me. Everyone feels differently about this. I'm an older player (49) and quite comfortable with myself and my RL gender and heterosexuality. I've been playing MMO's for a long time (since EQ1 launched in '99). My first, and long standing main character in that game was a male wood elf ranger, but I did play female alts during that time as well.

To the community team (whoever is running the twitter promotion to give away the pets every Friday). You are doing these too early in the morning (for west coast people).

I'm completely sick of this BS. In the 9 months I've been playing this game, every patch and update has been PvP focused. I am paying to play an MMO in a Star Wars universe. Not run around warzones repeatedly and mindlessly killing other players. There are already too many games out there for this. Why waste the Star Wars IP on PvP? Bioware has wasted any chance they had at making an enduring Star Wars MMO my squandering this first year So many people have left over lack of content, and all we get are PvP balance and more warzones... Seriously, I'm done. Back to real life for me...

At first, I hated the Rakghoul event, because I felt like I was forced to participate (hard to avoid infections). Once I got it into it, I had a lot of fun though. The rewards (crystals), while better suited to saber wielders, could be used by anyone. I still have some alts using the green crystals in blasters. Kinda cool. The Grand Acquisition Race was kinda 'meh' in my opinion. It felt like a corny college scavenger hunt (who does those?). There might have been more depth to it, but i never found it. I tried investigating the various NPC's and the strange events happening around Nar Shaddaa, but couldn't garner anything from them. There should have been some random conversations, or flavor text to give us some idea what was going on (why ARE all of these people killing each other? Who are they? ). Ultimately, I ran 6 characters though, just to get the tokens, even though I don't really have any need for them beyond a weapon for my Agent and a couple of set of bracers and belts for alts/companions. I think the rewards for the race were pretty lame. I can't for the life of me understand them. The mount, while a unique novelty, isn't really useful. Especially with all of the new mounts coming (particularly the 110% refer a friend mount). I just can't see myself ever using the race mount unless it's changed in the future to be adaptive speed. If the speeder would 'adapt' my current skill level, and be useful at level 40 and 50, I'd love it. Cruising around on a broken down (looking) jalopy is my idea of great fun, but not at the cost of 20% movement speed and being knocked off every time someone looks at me funny. The weapon choices are too limited. There should have been something for saber users. Don't get me wrong. I think the weapon designs are cool, and I got them for my vanguard and operative. But too many classes got left out. Being Legacy bound helps a little, but only being usable by three advance classes out of sixteen, there really isn't much benefit to this unless you use them for companions, and even those are fairly limited. Re: the OP, I think the most important factor in these events is the "Fun" factor. That matters more than anything else. In my opinion, the Rakghoul event was a lot more fun (once I got into it) than the Race was. The Race was kind of a drag. The one bonus I will give to The Race is the fact that it leaves the feeling that there may be more coming (perhaps a lead in to some future content). If this turns out to be true, then props to the designers.

Soooo disappointing...

I love it when my Sawbones Scoundrel finishes a mob with /nutkick

I'm back to this thread to clarify that while I am in support of community add-ons, it needs to be done in a limited way. I don't want to see threat meters of any kind, or auto heals (click a health bar to heal). Macros are needed, but need to be limited also. I don't want the ability to create a single button to execute my DPS rotation based on cool downs. That said, I would like the ability to create some basic macros (a few lines is plenty) to /target or /assist a player, and then /cast or /do {something} (i.e. heal, root/snare/dot, nuke/slash, etc...). Beyond that, I don't want to be a game script writer like you are in some games...

This is reddish/brown color, but higher level (44). http://tor-fashion.com/2012/04/22/gunslinger-elite/ If that isn't it, you might browse that site (http://tor-fashion.com). It's always been my go-to site for playing dress-up with my characters and their companions...

Buffs and Debuffs (effects!) need to be easier to see, and easier to differetiate between 'good' ones and 'bad' ones. I primarily play with people who are new to MMO's, and trying to explain the concept of a 'proc' to them, or a buff/debuff has been painful. It's almost impossible to do while in combat, because everyone is focused on killing stuff. I've tried to explain that they need to watch their buff bars and the mobs buff bars to watch for 'effects'. This is frustrating for everyone. In order to make the effect icons large enough to identify them, you have to make the target/player frame huge, which isn't otherwise necessary. My suggestion: Put the effects on separate frames, similar to the cast bars, and make them independently re-sizable, and allow options to visually identify 'good' effects from 'bad' (perhaps a colored border, etc..). Where 'add-ons' might come in handy, would be the community providing alternate sets of graphics/icons to be defined on their local client, to make the effects more visually identifiable.

I think the problem with the OP, is that while he described the things he did in a negative way, some people love those things about the game. I play with some people that are former tabletop RPG'ers, and they love to spend hours exploring every nook and cranny of a planet. They are often disappointed when they encounter an exhaustion zone at the edge of an expansive desert or snow field. "What's out there?" They are not in a rush to level.. they level only as a consequence to playing the game, and "Combat" (in a visual sense) is not something they are overly concerned about. Story is obviously important, and there are some weaknesses there, especially with the companions. Some aspects of the companion story are great, other parts are very weak. For me, my biggest complaint about the game, especially the combat, is that I spend all of my time watching my hotbuttons for cooldowns. I glance up at the encounter to assess targetting, then my eyes stay glued to my hotbars. To me this takes away from my enjoyment of the game. It's worse on some characters (agent/smuggler) than on others (trooper/bh), at least for me. I think this could be resolved with some more flexibility in the UI, or perhaps with the ability for the community to contribute add-ons. Note that with add-ons, I'm not a fan of 'macros' that automate combat to the point of having an "I Win" button, and as a healer, I don't want mouse-over healing either. Focus targetting is suitable (although could be improved -i.e have more than one for ops encounters).

I believe the OP is referring to the orange shells sold on the legacy vendors in Corsucant/Drommund Kaas. They are exorbitantly expensive, but I believe that is the idea. It gives players who already have a couple of level 50's the opportunity to acquire a full set of orange shells for their low level alts. It's not intended to make the game easier for people rolling through levels 10-30 for the first time. It's already easy enough to level in this game. Let's not dumb it down any more.

Microstransactions and/or RMT are a GOOD thing, as long as they aren't game breaking (i.e "Pay to Win"). Someone commented about them being invented by someone hell bent on making money.. uh.. well yea.. that's what these games are to EA and Bioware. it's their business. Making money is what they are supposed to do, and the better they do it, the better the game gets. It's simple. If they take in more RL cash money, they will have more money to put into the game. It has to be done well,and in a way that doesn't offend the majority of the player base, but being able to spend RL money on trinkets and cosmetic items, or even housing and the associated furnishings, in no way gives anyone an advantage on the battlefield, but it gives the company an income source that can help drive future development. Please stop being so closed minded about this. MT/RMT is not necessarily a bad thing...

There is one huge flaw in the OP's premise that they 'can't play'. If the problem was on the servers, they wouldn't be crowded because everyone is disconnecting? I transferred to Harbinger from Soresu the first day it was allowed. Yes, the fleet can be laggy, and doign dailies can be a pain fighting for objectives, but i've never had 'lag spikes' or any other load related problems. I play every single day, and have only enountered a login queue twice. Both times it was less than ten minutes. I can live with the few negatives, considering all of the positives from being on a hi-pop server. I feel for those who have technical problems, but i have to think they are most likely system or Internet related. If it were server side everyone would be experiencing it.

Bounty Hunters and Smugglers should not be aligned with either faction (in other words should be neutral). They should be allowed to move freely between the two factions as the storyline flows. it's fairly easy to make the case that Sith = Imperial and Jedi = Republic, but Bounty Hunters are no more "imperial" than Smugglers are "republic". One may choose to take up one cause or the other, but there is nothing obligating them to be either. They would work for whoever offers the most credits, right?

I agree with the basic sentiment of your post. I enjoy collecting them, even on alts. When I first started playing, I was adamant about collecting all of them. Since then I became someone disgruntled with the entire codex system (i learned it's bugged, incomplete, and in many cases completely inaccurate). Specifically that some of the achievements laid out in the planetary codex's are not currently accessible in the game. For me, and my play style, this type of achievement is far more important than how fast I level or how many hit points I have. The fact that the codex is the way it is is one of the major failings of this game in my humble opinion. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that i've kind of become discouraged with the entire datacron process. I get the ones that benefit my character if they are convenient, otherwise I don't bother. BTW, you refer to them as "Holocron's", but they are in fact "Datacrons" and "Matrix Shards". I think we all know what you are saying, but it will affect any future searches people might do looking for posts like this.

This is the direction I'm currently leaning, just because at low levels, I'm gaining new skills fairly quickly, I don't want to spend too much time fussing with the bar setup every time I train.

Sorry, but I'm going to call this a "Bad Plan" . There is some sound logic behind it, but you don't want your testing being done by people who aren't willing to pay to play the game on live servers. They just aren't invested enough to contribute to getting things fixed. It would just attract people who are looking for a free ticket. Also, as others have mentioned, you don't want potential paying customers being exposed to a 'test' environment that is buggy, unstable and prone to interruptions (more than the live servers already are). Dev teams need to ask people to sign up for permanent PTS status, and those people should have the ability to choose characters on their live servers to be periodically sync'd over to PTS automatically. Particularly right after new code is brought in to be tested. More incentives, like unique mounts, pets , and titles (already some of these exist) for their 'live' characters will help motivate people to test for them.

I recently started an Imperial Agent. So far I really like it, but I'm a little confused by the Cover Bar mechanic. Firstly, what benefit does being in cover give me as a player? The downside is that it makes me immobile, and usually out of range of some skills (i.e. Shiv). Some of my skills are only usable in cover, so obviously getting access to those skills is a benefit, but at the cost of mobility. Am I missing anything? And the cover bar is a tad confusing. It covers my main quickbar, so I obviously have to be careful what goes on which bar. Logic says that any skills that can't or shouldn't be used in cover would go on quickbar 1, and anything that is used only in cover goes on the cover bar. What I'm having a hard time understanding is that the numbers don't really add up (I'll have less available slots if I move things normally on quickbar 1). I have several other characters, and I use Quickbar 1 as my primary attack bar, with my default attack skill in slot 1 on this bar. If I use this setup on my agent, my quickbar covers up some of the skills normally prefer to keep there (the blaster shot skill - forget the name - for example). Anyway, if anyone has any tips (or links to external sites) that will help understand how these things can be improvements rather than handicaps, I'd appreciate it.

This is a great idea on both accounts (ignore and friend), but you would need to include a /roleplay option (hides level, class, race, etc...) for roleplayers and a /anon option (hides your online status completely) for people who want to log in and be left alone (for whatever reason).