I enter my password and wait, and wait. Eventually I get the message on launcher that "patch has encountered an unspecified error, please try again. I have been 'trying again and again for almost 12 hours now. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I have been booted 3 times with server lag over 200000. Am I the only one experiencing this extreme lag? It has been getting steadily worse over the last 3 - 4 weeks.

I am stuck on innitializing for 5 minutes or so, then I get the messae "This application has encountered an unexpected error. Please try the patch again". I had nothing to patch that I know of. I was on yesterday with no issues, but now I cannot get in game. Please help.

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/139ajm

Here are mine to share http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/139ajm http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/139ajl

Materials have always been in packs .. way before the JJ they were there as materials. More often than not I'd get items I already had 7 stacks of and would never use (they are still in my Cargo Hold from the early days). The only difference now is that with JJ you can select which mats are actually usefull. In a hypercrate of 24 packs I get on average 4 to 6 purples, which is not enough to affect the economy but helps me obtain what I need for personal use. What comes from missions goes to crafting items for me and items to sell. It varies. You are right that the drop rate from missions .. especially the Discoveries, need to be looked at. Those discoveries take 3hrs and 45 minutes and except for the rarest of occasions, they return the same as you'd get from a Rich mission on the crafting table. Even there the success rate is exceedingly low.

" wow this thread is still around" .. too true. I come because it's fascinating. But reality check wise: I think the terms of service says it all. We all agreed to the TOS to gain access to the game. Virtual contracts are just as binding as the paper version. Always read contracts so there are no surprises. This contract is pretty much standard to all MMOs I am guessing the machines were meant to be quick rep and someone misplaced some decimal points. They have restored it to work as intended. Their right. The game was fun to play before the slot machine and is fun to play now. First rule of gambling is NEVER gamble with coins you cannot afford to spend. If you can afford it, and find it fun trying for that big jackpot .. make sure you keep track of how much you have spent and go for it. I intend to in small increments. If you can't afford it, stay away. If it upsets you, stay away. Go have some fun.

I actually had a respectable run with the slot machine today. Stack 1: Total cash outlay after selling rep items: 25K GAINED: 1 purple JJ Stack 2: Total cash outlay after selling rep items: 17K Gained: 1 Certificate Stack 3: Total cash outlay after selling rep items 20K Gained: ! certificate Applying the cash outlay as cost of the item received I consider that reasonable and it was actually fun.

You only need to get the mounts on one character ..they go into collections. For a small investment of RL money, or using the monthly 500 grant to subscribers, it will not take long to unlock them for all characters. For instance I got the Cartel Skiff (can't remember which one) on one toon. Once I used it, it went into collections. I swapped to another toon, paid 120 CC and it was available for all my toons .. even new ones I create. I play the game and I make my credits 2 ways. Crafting and buying hypercrates, breaking them down, selling the contents and hoping to make a profit. Sometimes I do, sometimes I lose. I get lots of Certificates this way, and quite a good amount of JJ as well. Enough for my needs anyhow. I never used the slot machine to get JJ .. didn't really need to. Making all crafted items bound would be insane. Making items crafted from JJ from slots bound to legacy would not be unreasonable. There are, after all, other ways to get JJ, and other ways to get purple mats.

Making everything you craft bound to legacy, yes sure. Making everything you craft bound to toon is bad. My cybertech makes mods and armorings for all my toons. She's not high enough level to use most of them. If what she makes is bound to her, it's vendor trash .. expensive vendor trash, even with mats from slots. I am actually fine with not getting mats off the machine. If it was meant to be a way to get rep items, so be it. That is helpful if you don't have the rep. For those who just play for a while because it's fun (although now it's painful) reducing the failed spin rate from around 70% would be helpful, as would reducing the cost of chips to around 500 credits. Not as big a money sink that way .. selling the unneeded rep items would recover most of the cost if a person is purely playing for the off chance of getting that cursed mount. As it is, by the time it pops most people would have spent far more than it costs to get a similar mount off the GTN. So, minor tweaks and it becomes a viable item again. Probably wishful thinking though.

on twitter: The Old Republic @SWTOR · 3m 3 minutes ago We are still working on getting the Harbinger back online ASAP. Thank you for your continued patience.

On Twitter: The Old Republic @SWTOR · 2m 2 minutes ago We are investigating the Harbinger server being unavailable and will pass on updates as we have them. Thank you for your patience.

They fed the hampsters too much valium again .. they will have to sleep it off.

Draqksco I disagree with your statement: It's an unfair generalization. Are you saying that being disabled and only having one good hand to play with makes me lazy since I am unable to do FPs and Ops for mats? Edited to add: I am not the only disabled player by a long shot either. Check out "Able Gamers Foundation"

I generally don't do any group content unless it is with my daughter .. I am disabled and only have 1 good hand to play with. This causes me to slow down the action considerably and I know I'm holding others back .. or I simply get left behind. Either way it's best for me to avoid group contents. I agree with your premise of having some mats, and the resulting crafted item, bound is unfair. You couldn't even trade mods made by one of your own toons to another of your toons to gear them up. It simply would not work.

Ivanhedgehog there are a LOT of people who either don't do crafting or have not taken the time or spent the credits to keep their crafting up with their level. Making it impossible to sell crafted items means they lose out completely, as do the crafters who use this as their source of income. I do the quests but no ops or fps .. not by choice but because I am unable to do them. I craft and sell to supplement my income .. where possible I buy the rewards (mostly decortions) off the gtn and I gear up my upcoming toons with the income from crafting.

Draqsko I decided to give your suggestion a try. It's early days yet .. have done 3 of the lockbox missions each, appart from Lovely at the Top which I always do because the returns are good. Here are the results so far: Whoops .. cost 2330 2012 .. loss 318 2590 .. gain 260 1750 .. loss 635 Net LOSS after 3 missions 375 credits 4 Steps to Prosperity cost 3758 3888 .. gain 130 3883 .. gain 125 3226 .. loss 532 Net LOSS after 3 missions 277 credits Keyed up cost 2415 1707 .. loss 708 1881 .. loss 534 2698 .. gain 283 Net LOSS after 3 missions 959 credits There is definitely negative return at this level. It remains to be seen if it balances out over time. So far it's not looking promising .. especially for Keyed Up

I do disassembly required with both my Scorpios, both my Tharan Cedrax, both my Mako, both my Yuun .. can't remember who else but you get the idea. I also do the quest for box "lovely at the top" which often drops mission discoveries. As I said, I have gone 2 full days with not one purple from those missions, using expert slicers .. rep maxed at 10000. Other days I do better. Today was a pretty good day finally. If Disassembly required doesn't pop I do Forsaken Handshake. If neither pops I skip that toon, or port to another stronghold to try and reshuffle to get either to pop. It can be frustrating and expensive going 2 days with no result. Edited to add: Doing the quests this way, I give my mission toons 200K and let them burn through it to keep track of what I spend. If things go well it can lasts weeks. If I have no results it can last less than a week More often than not, it 's a matter of days. I sell the Biocell Memory Cores to supplement income, but only when people are not selling them below vendor value. Vendor is 16357 per stack, plus there is a gtn fee of 980. People often sell for less than 1500 per stack SIGH

In a previous post (that I could not find for the life of me) I went through some of the reasons why the current system sucks. I'll recap: I have 11 slicers among other skills. Because I can't run ops (I had a stroke and have limited use of left hand. I'm a one handed player and can't keep up) my only recourse for obtaining purples is crew mission. I spend all day flipping between toons clearing crew missions and doing crafting. This is how I make the money to supply my upcoming toons with gear/mods/levelling money etc etd. I have gone as much as 2 full days doing slicing missions .. only rich, and if not available, bountiful .. with not one purple popping. Other days I have better results but never really good. On average a purple costs me 30 K and it takes 2 to make an augment, for instance .. plus other mats. If I sell for less than 70K, to cover mats and gtn fee, I sell at a loss. I only make a profit with the fact that I get some crits .. not as many as I would like. It has been said that 45K is a reasonable price for augments. That would leave me flat broke very fast. I would be selling for 10s of thousands of credits less than my cost to make the augment. I did a comparison of the 'mission discovery' missions from this level as compared to the previous one. In the previous level I would get 5 purples, 10 blues, loot box and random schematic. In the current level I get 3 purples, 10 blues, loot box and random schematic. The rich missions on the mission list give the identical result, except the mission list loot boxes give more credits. That is quite a reduction from the previous level. I only do mission discoveryies with comanions that have crit specialization in that skill and rep maxed at 10000 .. eg Scorpio for slicing. There should be more benefit than a guaranteed crit. It is impossible for me to keep the prices as low as people want and they feel I sm price gouging, but I am barely making a profit. Sometimes I actually make a loss just to keep things moving and to have some money for further missions to get mats and try again. To supplement my haul of purples with a modest return from the slot machine would be helpful. I didn't actually play it before the nerf but have tried it since. It hurt to lose that much money for no returns. I'm still licking my wounds LOL. So, yes, I can say the current system needs looking into. Better returns would mean lower prices and less complaints .. even from those who went for easier returns from slot machines.

I rely heavily on slicing and crafting for an income. I am unable to do ops/fps etc. I had a stroke a few years back and the fine motor control in my left hand is very poor so I cannot move fast enough or do what is needed to keep up. I am a one handed player. Crafting, and yes slicing, supplies my upcoming toons with gear, mods, augments, levelling money, transport money etc etc. Besides, I love crafting .. and I enjoy selling items on the GTN. It is something I am able to do without getting flak for not keeping up, or without holding others back while they wait for me. It's what makes a game for me. Everyone has different needs and expections from a game, and it's great when the game caters to everyone's needs.

That is why I make a storage toon whose only purpose in life is to store items that I hope will gain value when there is no longer a glut on the market. Maybe forlorn hopes but may pay off. As to the companion gifts. When I buy a hypercrate I sell the companion gifts .. my companions have max rep. Usually from a hypercrate I make anywhere between 150-200K credits selling the companion gifts. This offsets the cost of the hypercrate a little .. albeit very little. At least they go to someone who can use them, and I get some of my money back.

Essentially there is a reshuffle option. When no rich or bountiful missions pop on my list I simply travel to one of my other strongholds, which takes a second or two, and the list is reshuffled. 99& of the time the missions I am looking for pop. HOWEVER, I have found that if I force it in this way, I often get a failed mission. No returns whatsoever in many cases.

I have 11 slicers. I spend all day flipping from one to another to send people out on rich and bountiful slicing missions. Some days I do ok, never really well, sometimes I go days with no purples. On average each purple costs me 30k. I need 2 to make an augment, plus the other mats. So it costs me around 65K to make an augment. Please explain to me how it is reasonable for me to lose 20K on each item I sell. When I sell for more it is usually for around 70K .. that gives me a 5K profit for all the time and effort put in. That is not price gouging!!

I decided to give it one more try. Here is an exact breakdown. I bought 2 stacks of 99 chips for a total of 148500 credits. Results stack 1 : 119 spins 20 replacement chips 72 non winning spins 22 Banned Holovids (rep) 16 med supplies (rep) 9 artworks (rep) Investment: 74250, sale of rep items (I am maxed out) 39500 LOSS 34750 Results stack 2: 18 replacement chips 72 non winning spins 1 artwork 12 med supplies 21 holovids 1 Jawa Junk Investment 74250. Sale of rep items 25000 LOSS 48250 Return for investment 1 Jawa Junk, 0 Assorted droid parts, 0 Scavenged Scrap, 0 mounts Invested 148500 total. LOSS 83000 total, earned 1 Jawa Junk I've played slot machines in casino's and clubs with consistently better results.

Certainly with the massacre of the slot machine, missions need to be looked at seriously. Just as an example, I have 11 slicers and managed to go 2 full days doing crew missions as soon as they popped from 8 am til 11pm. I did not get one single purple to drop from fich and bountiful missions in that time. As for the 'mission discovery' missions. I made a comparison. Using Scorpio (specialization slicing crit and I have her at 10000 companion rep) doing a lvl 450 slicing mission .. I got 5 purples, 10 blues and random schematic and loot box. When I managed to crit I got 6 purples and more blues and higher yield from loot box. For lvl 500 mission I got 3 purples, 10 blues, schematic that is vendor trash and loot box that gave me less than regular rich yield mission. The number of purples and blues is identical to the rich missions from mission list. I have yet to crit and get more than 3 purples. This comes nowhere near comparing to the previous level. It is the same across the board for all gathering missions and mission discovry missions. This definitely needs work to make purples more accessible and keep the costs to a reasonable amount. If it costs me 240K to finally get a purple, there is no way I can sell a crafted item for double that (it takes 2 for crafted item) and I am even reluctant to use them for personal use when they are so extremely rare. The slot machine evened that out, but totally trashed prices of crafted items. They are coming back up, but the cost of acquiring purples is still way too high with current crew mission drops.