I am going to say the Collicoid noise is my biggest audio annoyance in this game. It is constant, unchanging and drives me crazy.

The only "right" answer depends on what criteria you want to guide you. If you have a certain role you want to play in PVE, there are definitely better options than others, though they change with each expansion, though I suspect class balance will be less a focus for some time. Sorcs have suffered in PVE for a number of years now, but if you understand the class (I think priority system + ranged + force barrier) helps immensely, I consider it an easy class to master. For me, I chose my main for role play reasons. In other RPG games I usually prefer a brute, melee approach to dispatch my enemies. But with Star Wars...I just think force lightning is freaking awesome! Always have. So...I chose a lightning sorcerer as my main and just stuck with it.

I think this crosses a line, don't you? The Last Jedi is pure, absolute trash. Built upon a reboot that stands on the grave of this great fandom. This game is all we have left of the original lore. Not defending the crappy rollout. The lies about 252 drops in the crates (they should have just said CXP is a dead system for gearing), But we got some solid story content. Good characters. Return of beloved characters from our class stories. It was brief, but that much was solid. IMO If they can just tweak some stuff on gearing. Give us a solid roadmap. Reward people that actually fought those damn WB's yesterday, I will still be on board. I will always sub. But keeping me logged in and pouring cash into the CM market is another matter entirely.

Any acknowledgement on the Flesh & Blood issue? People running it and seeing zero rewards for their effort?

Same. I would like to know if they intend to do anything. I did get two pieces of gear yesterday, A belt and the incorrectly colored (drives me nuts) accuracy earpiece. :/ I would have been more pumped if I had been able to get that Saber/Offhand bonus from the WB's. Felt like I was making gear progress. I will probably wait until next Tuesday to log in again and hope they have a patch running to fix stuff.

The math I understood was this: 2 Crystals per week from UC. One piece of gear. 1 crystal from the rotating priority. 1 piece of random gear from doing the weekly. Either the saber or the offhand as a reward for doing Flesh & Steel/WB mission. Which is broken ATM. So that is 3 pieces of gear your first two weeks if you don't take the inflated UC penalty and only collect one crystal from the smuggler. Then from there it would be two pieces of gear, or alternate 2-3 pieces if you take the +500 UC penalty from the smuggler for the second crystal. I think given the horrendous drop rate, they want to make sure your gear accumulation is limited. They don't want players actually getting Masterwork DC or 252 gear from crates. if the rate is too high, you accumulate gear too fast and subvert the weekly caps they created with the Ossus Reputation (which controls gear accumulation by limiting acquisition of certain pieces to certain ranks, but also the speed at which you can accumulate the reputation with the weekly cap). So there is a droprate...but the RNG is so painful, it is not practical to pursue. They want you logged in.

Same. I had fun! Thought the "return" was cheesy and illogical though, but the execution was well done and had plenty of "cool" factor to it. I liked the new characters. Was VERY pleased with a return of a NPC character in the SI story class, same with a companion. I am hoping some of the conversations I had with the Major were previews of storylines to come that seemed to harken back to my original class story. If that is the case, it would make me very happy! Strongly considering forgoing the gear grind. I am not going to be forced to doing MM Gods of the Machine. Too many raiders have quit and wipes are just not fun. The drop rate for 252 is insanely low from crates. The masterwork DC's, I have yet to hear of anyone getting one. So CXP is officially useless. Just not sure it is worth it. Too much work for too infrequent and too random a reward.

Both of these were issues, with the WB issues being the only one that really hurt gameplay. The only other one was that some of the sages in the Jedi Temple had wonky hats rising above their heads.

Har, har. I didn't claim it was a substantial amount. Not when everyone has tabs of crates and boosts saved. But if those all disappeared and we began grinding for RNG gear again..., it takes a few hours to collect those. I have heard of some people in gen chat saying they got a piece of gear or two out of hundreds crates (so they do drop at least). It appears the drop rate is like 1/200 or so, which is absolutely insane for the new low-tier gear. Not heard of anyone that has gotten a Masterwork DC. I agree though, there is no point doing stuff for CXP. I have saved my boosts in the case: A. This horrible drop rate was intentional so it would wipe away the months of saved boosts, ensuring that players would need to remain logged and work for new gear following the expansion. Then claim it was a mistake and they want us to play our way and raise it up. or B. They honestly think we are going to grind for hundreds and hundreds of hours to get new low tier gear, then upgrade that with even more hours. Not happening. Eventually they may realize the error and correct it. If not, the boosts are rendered worthless, anyway.

I have asked repeatedly and looked everywhere. I have finished the story and done the heroics and dailies. Where do you pick up the WB Mission??

I have yet to hear of anyone acquiring a single piece of 252 gear from crates nor a Masterwork DC. I understand the drop rate is extremely rare for the later, but for the lower tier gear? I opened 10 fresh boxes with saved CXP boosts and got zippo. Nothing different than pre 5.10. I am not going to bother opening more crates until there is more transparency on how things are supposed to drop.

I have opened after using the boosts (so completely new boxes for 5.10) and it is all old stuff. Think about how long it would take to burn through ten boxes WITHOUT stockpiled boosts. The drop rate for the 252 gear cannot be that low. The crystals perhaps, but not the lower tier gear. I suspect there is a bug or something that triggers gear acquisition. Storyline completion? Has ANYONE gotten a single piece of new gear, yet?

Wondferful! Thank you for the update, Eric!

Thanks Eric for keeping us updated. The timing of these posts is way off my CST, it says 7:31 PM as the latest post. O.o I took PTO to enjoy this (STWOR is the only SW I have left so new content is a big deal to me) so I hope things can be up an running relatively soon and not get delayed a day.

Did you save crates earned prior, or use CXP drops to rapidly acquire them? I have a full tab of ops CXP boosts that I have been saving for this occasion and planned on using them all rapidly to get a couple dozen crates and get a leg up on gearing. I was worried they might mess around with the timing of the crates and the drops so I didn't want to get them prior to 5.10 and then open them after launch. I will be cautious and only use a few at a time.

Definitely. I still think the logic of the traitor storyline with Theron was a mess. But the final scenes of it (assuming he was your romance) made it totally worthwhile. I will be very upset if Theron and Lana are not significant, ongoing presences moving forward.

I think this is an impossible question to answer unless BW decides to tell us the specific class that Nox was as the "canon" class. Which I doubt. We know with the Wraith that as a warrior, his strength was in saber combat, either single our dual sabers. Nox could have had his specialty also in combat with a dualsaber or his talents could have been in mental sorcery, lightning or even dark healing. I think if Nox was specialized in dualsaber combat or dark healing he wouldn't stand a chance against the skill of the Wraith. The Wraith defeated two Dark Council members, Jedi Masters and other saber specialists to fall to the blade of sorcerer. However, lightening and mental sorcery are a totally different ballgame. It would depend on the Wraith's speed and ability to neutralize those ranged attacks. I am biased. I think Nox would win. His use of force ghosts has him on the power scale that is no longer limited to natural potential, like Vitiate, Bane, Nihilus or Sion. If his ranged offenses were so easy to mitigate, he would not have been victorious against so many foes. The Wraith on the other hand has mostly dealt with saber specialists, so we can only attest to his deftness of blade.

Agreed. Lots of opinions, and this is entertainment so it is going to be subjective. I very much enjoyed the Eternal Empire storyline. The Unknown Regions where largely an unexplored area of lore that yielded some fun mystery. I liked the idea of Iokath and to an Extent, the Eternal Empire. The Valkorian/Vitiate stuff needed more direct explanation from Boyd. I found the traitor storyline and Nathema Conspiracy to simply be really sloppy storytelling that complicated things immensely. The ending was terrible and I frankly never cared for the concept of the Gravestone to start. Defying physics on that level breaks my suspension of disbelief. I have no idea what is canonical now. Who is alive or dead. I assume all the characters that could have been killed will receive nare a passing glance of attention. MIA NPC's that showed up in the final flashpoint...what a total waste. Lots of wasted story potential. Boyd really needs to write a post to prove to us this was all intentional and part of a cohesive story, unless parts are being excluded for development, later. Right now the story looks about as well thought out as anything Disney would have produced and that my friends is shameful. I am looking forward to the next chapter, though I do need to know why the Outlander is not immediately a target of assassination by both the Republic and Empire following the destruction of the Sith fleet. Powerful personalities like that are generally not trusted by the power-hungry folks once subjected by them.

I think it should be clarified Disney reboot canon has no place in the Old Republic. It was based on the original canon as we all well know, so I am not sure how anything produced by Disney is relevant. We work with the Universe as it was always understood. The Essential Atlas being a key reference tool. This sounds like a mess and I am putting this one on the Bioware team. Unless they plan on some major revelations about Vitiate traveling the galaxy around the time of the Great Galactic War, this makes minimal sense. It would also be contrary to the Tales of Jedi Comics. Sadow vs. Kressh was always about whether to leave the Caldera to explore new worlds to conquer. Nathema was always was described as a quiet, Sith agrarian world, you can't just retcon it to Wild Space. It destroys everything we understand about the Sith Empire, Wild Space and the Great Galactic War. Sith Worlds were in the Stygian Caldera on the opposite side of the Galaxy from Wild Space. The Sith clearly did not leave the Calderra until the rule of Naga Sadow and the Great Hyperspace War did not last very long. Not enough time for Vitiate to wander the galaxy, stumble into Wild Space, find Zildrog and bring him back to Nathema. It makes almost as little sense as the Iokath Creators dropping it on Nathema, though I see it being the only way to reconcile this. The creators must not have confined their experiments to the worlds of Wild Space, but had a vast domain. We are told they existed prior to the Manderon Period in 7,000 BBY. I see two ways to reconcile this: 1. The Iokath rose and fell after the fall of the Rakata. The Rakata were too vicious to have not attacked Iokath and their territory was the majority of the galaxy, so these two forces could not have come into contact with each other. AND 2. The Iokath would need to have fallen by the time the Republic began to really spread out. But that would have been closer to 15,000 BBY. OR 3. Iokath creators specifically chose to avoid the Galactic Republic (keeping in the assumed timeline) and their territory extended from Wild Space, going west and north through the unknown regions and remaining rimward and eventually reached Sith Space. Perhaps Nathema was one of the most remote planets on their frontier and thus chosen to drop off Zildrog? If Vitiate the scholar and Lord of Nathema discovered the Dark Sanctuary and with it the maps and history of Iokath (but perhaps not the location of the sphere itself), he could have used that to discover the Chiss and explore the Unknown Regions and Wild Space? We need to be realistic. The Republic took ages to chart the galaxy. Exploration was perilous. For a lone Sith to just stumble around and discover all this stuff without bumping into the Republic...it just doesn't work. I see option 3, being that Zildrog was dropped on Nathema and discovered by Vitiate millennia later...that is the only way this works without rebooting massive amounts of lore, which I am absolutely opposed to. If we go that route, these forums are pointless as understanding anything is pointless as it will all get tossed aside eventually when content creators get too lazy to do any research on the subject in which they create content. If Boyd pulls a Disney and starts massive retconning stuff to conform to their creative impulses, then I am done with SWTOR.

Whoa, whoa. I played all the content and really devoured the story. These posts did help to piece Iokath together for me more but I would like to clarify a few things. 1. Has there been a major retcon on the destruction of Nathema? Was Vitiate's ritual not the sole cause of the consumption of all life on the planet? Are we now saying ZIldrog was part of this? 2. How do we know Zildrog was on Nathema prior to its destruction? I always assumed it was a later discovery by the Emperor hundreds of years following the establishment of the reconstituted Sith Empire. A tool squirreled way. 3. If Zildrog was conclusively on Nathema prior to its destruction, could Vitiate have discovered it and thus learned of the location of the Eternal Fleet from Zildrog? If not the location, then all things of interest in that section of Wild Space?

I am really impressed at the level of variation BW went through with these characters. Though it makes the canon so damn messy. I am really pouty Ravage and Mortis got tossed away so casually. I was hoping they would appear properly or died warding off Zakuul. We still have two Dark Council members that have neither NPC's nor were ever given resolution. Darth Rictus and Darth Aruk. I am hoping they have not been literally forgotten. To a degree, Jadus is still kicking. I assume he may yet make an appearance. I hope we see more of the politics of both the Republic and Empire following the end of the Alliance. I am hoping Acina and I can resume our relationship. Though, if she was wise, she would either seduce or kill me first chance she got. Darth Nox has killed the following: Two members of the Dark Council, directly. Revan. Valkorian. Vaylin. High-powered force users seem to fall before me. Sith tend to not like rivals.

I preserved Khem. Zash shows up and you kill her instead. I am not sure what that means for the SI. I am not quite sure why BW took this weird route with him and introduced the Asgal Usar character. I assume they felt that the "Khem/Zash" story options were too divergent to try and doing anything serious with him. Would have been easier to say that Zash left Khem's body/mind prison and then remove her permanently from the story and then have us rejoin Khem later.

Depends. It seems like the power of the Dread Masters is either 100% effective, effective but limited in its ability to cause harm, more often just changing how we perceive the environment (Styrak, Calphy and Raptus were able to make us perceive we were in entirely different environments for period of time), and in some cases, not effective at all. One must assume that the Dread Masters at one time tried to project on to Vitiate and found their combined powers to be totally useless. Otherwise they would be ruling the Empire, not him & the Dark Council. It appears a trained mind and/or the very high force potential can mitigate the effects of the Masters. At the very least, we can assume that Kaeden (the Jedi that captured them) was immune. Either that or they were so deep in meditation that they had no idea what was going on. I think it is possible that Vaylin's power could be too much for the Masters to cope with. But her mind is so broken it is hard to say. As six force users, their combined power in a fight would be formidable, even without their ability to project terror. I would place my money on the Masters. As a duelist, she was not a master as Senya held her own. She was defeated by the Outlander and Valkorian could contain her. She could probably kill a couple, but with six light saber-wielding Masters of the Dark side, I think it would be difficult to ward off all the mental attacks, projectiles, force pushes, lightning strikes and simultaneous saber attacks of the Masters AND proceed to kill them.

For those that have not completed the fight, can you explain what happens at the end? I have seen a few videos but the audio is muted. I don't see a body or anything. Is the absolutely, without question, destroyed? Or could he have flown away? Just following the general rules of Sci-fi/fantasy/horror. Where the body is not found, then one must assume it is not really dead.

I never gave a $%&@ about Conquest before, and this patch certainly didn't change that. Titles and achievements mean little to me. I did put forth the effort to get the "Dread Executioner" title because it was pretty awesome. I admit I was really irritated with GC, companion changes and nerfing stats depending on planetary presence when they first made those changes. In the long run? Not that big a deal. I actually prefer the companion changes now. Less tedious, more of them and with little changes to their appearance to show the progression of time, kind of nice. I will not give up my sub out of loyalty to the original Star Wars canon and SWTOR is the only place left where I can enjoy Star Wars. That $12.99 a month is like a tithe in the memory of how much Star Wars meant to me for so many years and how I refuse to give it up until Disney has thoroughly killed it and they close the servers. However, the pathetic trickle of meaningful story content that expands lore, the lack of dynamic mini-games to eat away the time, over the past year have gotten me to generally put SWTOR on hold. I am logging again for Izax because he is new, he has lore meaning and a challenge is enjoyable. I will log in again when we wrap up the Nathema Conspiracy, though I felt the flashpoint stuff did a major injustice to storytelling and dragging this out over eight months is not acceptable. A chapter a month for KOTFE, in retrospect, was not all that bad. This is just not enough. I used to spend hundreds a month on cartel packs because I was engaged in this game and the world they built. But the expectation of grinding the exact same content for hours with different toons is a joke and they beat that dead horse so bad, its bleached-dry bones are scattered all over the farm by now. I have not spent a dime on the cartel market in over 6 months and until I get real content going again, changes to old content to make it feel fresh (add new enemies to all the planets, create some stupid safari event for solo players to hunt down animals to get currency that lets you buy decent looking decos, armor and weapons like oh...the Gree Event??), I will continue to log in for short periods to do the trickle of new content then return to other, more engaging tasks.