I think I would have to agree with you on this. If you reamin neutral then you are not taking sides. You are not helping out either cause. The reward for not helping out is that you get to play to your own standards. I would take it a step father and say that any character that doesn't have at least dark side 1 or light side 1 would not be able to PvP at all. You wouldn't be able to attack, heal or be attacked or healed in PvP. You would be able to heal other neutral players in PvE.

The point is that you run; ...to get away from something ...to catch something ...or for sport and exercise You dont run 1/4 mile from the Sith trainer to your Sith master who is in the same building. there are several different things that would be more realistic for the era.. you would walk that distance unless their was an emergency you would have a walking esclader (I'm not sure what you call them. But you see them in big airports) the sith trainer and sith master would be fairly near each other or.... the sith master would be your trainer thats why you call them the master. A flying taxi wouldn't to drop you off 3/4 of a mile short of the Speeder docking station unless your Hero was out of cash. LOL. And the Sith would make the taxi take him all the way anyways. I can just see your broke Sith Warrior making an excuse like, "Um, driver why dont you drop me off here...er My doctor says Im not getting enough exercise...you know gotta watch my girlish figure. Heh Heh" A Jedi Knight would certainly already know how to drive a Speeder before they ever got their first Light Saber not halfway to the level cap. Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker both knew how before they ever thought of becomeing Jedi. Just try to imagine the story line if the hero didn't have a Speeder license. You have to make up an excuse for it. To many DUIs? Motion sickness, but only when they drive? that goes away when the have enough mastery of the force. How can every single hero of your MMO have the same kind of basic drivers training learning disorder? and still know how to fly a state of the art starship? The extra running should be used to explore the world like its own adventure. It can be rewarding all on its own. But the time sink running makes the exploring by hiking a whole less likely to happen. Indeed Rift realized the aburdity of running inside of huge buildings and decided to let the players ride their mounts inside the castle. It was an absurd solution for an absurd problem. I do commend Rift for at least recognizing the mistake and owning it. The lesson is don't intentionally build boring unrealistic crap into your cool MMO it dilute the quality of the game. I think somebody called it the fun factor.

So you are ok with giant awe inspireing buildings. But we have escalators and Golf carts in the huge buildings of the present era, Like Airports for instance. The futuristic era of TOR would have even cooler looking methods of travel. It is not very awe inspireing to see a Powerful Jedi Knight or Top Secret Imperial agent running on foot endlessly though a Shopping Mall or Space Port. It looks like the republic and the empire is suffering from fiscal cutbacks. But then they turn around give you a space ship that you could raise bantha's in? http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bantha

Right! Thats whole the point. They dont ask how to make the characters walk. But its becuse the structures are way too huge. Its reduntant to make people run and then make even bigger buildings. I'm not trying to make it so that every quest giver and quest objective is all in the same location/room. I think they way over did that on foot travel distance mainly in the citys and space ports and even on the space ship it self. I think it dilutes the quality of the game expireince and looks pretty silly in general. I t doesn't look or seem quite as bad once you get out in the "wild" areas. Edited spelling

At what level are mounts availible? I am current ly level 16

IMHO the new MMO developers are really blowing an opportunity get ahead of other MMO developers when they dilute the quality of their game by using running around to grind as a time sink. I realize that not everything in an MMO is going to be 100% thrilling, but the running time sink as everyone knows is planned. It is IMO a huge mistake. IT is the main reason I don't go back and play WOW or Rift. Well at least Rift lets you ride your horse inside of the absurdly huge buildings now. It wasn't that way in the bigging of that game. It shows that Developers are capable of learning. So there is hope! LOL STOP MAKING STUPIDLY HUGE BUILDINGS IN THE FIRST PLACE! You will know when you got the right size of buildings, spaceships and any structure when you get new players asking, "Hey, can somebody tell me how to make my character walk, It looks stupid to run from here to there all the time!" Just saying. I find myself running out of time to play MMOs.